


Where the Sword Was Covered and Dust Had Grown

by Nosferatank



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters: Black & White | Pokemon Black and White Versions
Genre: Discussion of Ghetsis, Discussion of Team Plasma, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, No shipping, Old Skool Theories both from 12-year-old-me’s head and forums circa 2010, Post-Canon, Professor Aurea Juniper/Mom (Pokemon Black & White)- Background, Reincarnation, Weird tangled feelings about past fratricide, because the first hero-kings took cain instinct to the literal, they're friends your honor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-11 22:40:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29125113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nosferatank/pseuds/Nosferatank
Summary: The sides of the two-edged sword shall be bare, and its mouth shall be red,For the breath of the face of the Lord that is felt in the bones of the dead.-Long ago, two kings killed one another for the throne. At the Pokemon League, thousands of years and a lifetime later, two kings faced each other for a throne.Updates Saturdays
Relationships: Mom (Pokemon Black & White) & Touko | Hilda, N | Natural Harmonia Gropius & Touko | Hilda
Comments: 22
Kudos: 19





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is kind of fun in that it’s a more ‘old school’ fic- most of these ideas were things i thought about during my first playthrough, and I’m only basing it off information from the canon game. No secondary sources, no interviews, no unfortunate names (N buddy I’m so sorry they did that to u, even if you are a huge pain to characterize), just whatever is on the Black/White cart and the sandbox that it is. Even canon from BW2 might be ignored in favor of said First Playthrough Thoughts. Also fun with pretentious poetry-inspired titles yeehaw.
> 
> In terms of ages, for where it’s relevant, N is 18 (sent out for his badge run as soon as he was of age. 18 is not as mature as you or he thinks it is) while Hilda is 15 (she had her birthday during the journey. Has an affliction called Being Fifteen and Impulsive). Though it’s not as relevant, Bianca is 15 and Cheren is 14 (lol baby. Though in the eyes of characters like Karla and Juniper, they’re all young’uns).
> 
> And lastly, this ain’t ferriswheelshipping. I’m continuing my usual beloved tradition of taking a popular ship and smashing it with the Genfic Hammer. Anyways Hilda is a lesbian so it would never happen. If you’re looking for ship content, there are plenty of other great fics out there for you, I’m sure!

The teenager that returned home with Karla after her journey was not the same one she sent off with a smile and a reminder to call home, every once in a while. 

When Hilda had called her from Route 10, Karla booked a flight to Opelucid right away. As a surprise, of course- either to greet her daughter after a victory, or to console her after a loss. It was the best she could do, since the League disallowed audiences during battles- only two trainers, their pokemon, and their skills were allowed into the arenas. 

Karla had been, shamefully, asleep when it all happened, the jetlag from her trip tugging her eyelids down.

She woke up to her phone ringing, and to news that made her heart jump and her lungs burn. 

As her daughter’s guardian, she was the first one called when Hilda was admitted into the hospital. 

Pained and angry and terrified out of her mind, Karla demanded the caller to explain what happened, phone cradled on her shoulder as she jammed her feet into her shoes and fumbled with her wallet. 

“Just look up the news about the Unova League, ma’am,” He’d said, harried, and hung up. 

Karla called a cab, and on the way to the hospital she searched up the news on her phone, her fingers sweating and shaking. She watched, dumfounded, as a news helicopter circled the massive structure that erupted from the League building like fangs from some great beast. 

The side of the fang-castle _exploded_ , crawling with lightning and roaring like a thunderstorm. Every stream fritzed out, black and static-dotted. 

News anchors had little information beyond that the Gym Leaders, Elite Four, and a few trainers- whose names were censored due to their status as legal minors- had stormed Team Plasma’s castle-base. Plasma’s Seven Sages made their escape from the authorities; however, their boss, the self-proclaimed king, was still at large.

Karla tipped her driver generously, and ran into the lobby through the back entrance, unashamed of her frantic pace. 

The somewhat-intimidated secretary directed her to Hilda’s room- which Karla was surprised to see a pair of Rangers leaning against the doorframe. Instantly, they straightened and scrutinized her. 

Karla didn’t bother letting them interrogate her. “My daughter, Hilda. Is she in here?”

The left Ranger barely started to nod before she barged past them and into the room. 

Hilda looked small in the hospital bed, propped up by pillows, with a bandage pressed to her head and another winding around her shoulder that peeked beneath her hospital gown. Six pokeballs were nestled in her lap, and there was a vase of flowers on the window 

Hilda glanced up at her, and for a moment Karla’s hairs rose along her neck and her hindbrain whispered ‘ _This is not my child._ ’

Hilda’s mind was clearly far away, her eyes like the infinity of the ocean, the unclouded sky, the endless swathe of wildfire.

And then the feeling was gone, and Hilda grinned tiredly at her mother, crooked and longing. “Hi, mom.”

\--

Hilda was never sure how to explain to her mother just _what_ happened, in that castle. Things were blurred, somewhat, like watery ink on paper. It would take a while for the colors to settle. 

Although some of that was probably the pain medication. Lightning burns were _never_ fun.

She didn’t blame N for it, though. They’d always played rough, as young princes tumbling around the castle. She’d left him with a shiny red burn for his trouble, anyway, so they were even. 

And then she had to shake herself out of that mindset _again_ , because ever since Reshiram (bone of my bone, blood of my blood) awoke, so did the oldest memories imprinted on her soul. The fact that she remembered how poorly her _last_ fight with her brother went, in her previous life, was likely the reason things went as well as they did. There were no deaths in this battle despite the Head Sage’s efforts otherwise; though she could definitely think of _somebody_ who deserved it. Ghetsis was such a slippery bastard that the Shadow Triad had _already_ busted him out by the time she managed to pester the Interpol agents interviewing her about it.

(And that was a trial on its own- Hilda was one of the most heavily involved witnesses in Plasma’s attempted takeover, which meant interviews, and legal nonsense, and trying not to notice as people involved quietly panicked because the _other_ legendary dragon was awake now, too, and this time was in the hands of a _legal minor_.)

Her mother was looking at her from the uncomfortable-looking hospital chair, open curiosity and the faintest needle-prick of wariness on her face, as if she knew something was fundamentally _different_ about Hilda. ‘ _A mother always knows_ ’ or something. Hilda suppressed an amused snort at the thought. Even the most intuitive mother in the world could never anticipate _this_.

At least her mother wasn’t _fussing_ so much anymore. You’d think Hilda was dying from ten spear-wounds, from Karla’s fretting. 

“So, you were at the League castle when the battle happened,” Karla began, slowly edging into the strange waters of the past twenty-four hours.

“Yup,” Hilda said, popping the ‘P’ at the end, casually. “I went up with the gym leaders, kicked some Plasma butt, and stole one of their boss’s pokemon.” All of which were true. She’d deliberately destroyed Ghetsis’s pokeballs, and recaptured his Hydreigon herself- both for its own safety and for hers. 

“I can tell when you’re hiding something, Hilda,” Karla said, faintly admonishing. 

Hilda tilted her head towards the doorframe, keenly aware of the pair of Rangers guarding her. Her partnership with Reshiram was, at the moment, not public to anyone but eyewitnesses and top League officials- thanks to Alder pulling some strings and emphasizing her young age- legends bless the man, really- and she’d like to keep it that way. But even past that, there were things she didn’t want to invite the risk of saying within earshot, no matter how professional the people attached to those ears may be. 

“I’ll tell you later, at home,” Hilda promised. And was quietly relieved for the extra time to articulate an explanation for her mother.

Because bonding with one of the legendary dragons was one thing. Remembering her past life as the first of Reshiram’s kings? A whole ‘nother ballgame.

\--

(Cheren and Bianca dropped by once she was cleared for non-family visits. Bianca launched herself into a smothering hug that ended with her collapsing on the hospital bed like they were preteens again. Cheren attempted a more polite embrace, but offered no resistance as Hilda yanked him down with the rest of them.

The bandage around his throat was gone- from where he ungainly tried to untangle himself from the two girls, Hilda could still see the miniscule stitches marking the deep nick in his throat, from where the Shadow Triad held a knife to it as the battle with Ghetsis raged in the throne room. 

Hilda swallowed the old fear of what could have happened that day. What would have happened, if any of them slipped. She put it away.

Even confined to the hospital, the three of them tended to roughhouse a little bit. Hopefully, Cheren didn’t notice being treated far more gently than usual.)

\--

Hilda would have vastly preferred to fly home on Reshiram after getting discharged from the hospital, but instead took the train for her mother’s sake. It was slower than taking a commercial airline, but it gave them some privacy.

Also, if she’d flown back via plane, she would’ve had to get her pokeballs scanned, and considering they contained both a legendary dragon and a Plasma boss’s ex-pokemon that was _probably_ an accessory in a few mysterious disappearances-slash-murders, it was safer to just take the train. 

The uneasy silence, even in the privacy of the train car, was almost too much to bear. Hilda sighed, figuring out where to begin with this whole mess.

“So, do you remember the guy I mentioned in our calls sometimes? N?”

Karla nodded, hesitant, sensing the leadup to something huge. “Yes, I do.” She grinned a little bit, cheeky. “Mostly complaining, if I recall.”

Hilda flushed, even though her mother _was_ right. Most of the time when the older teenager came up in conversation, it was Hilda bitching about the weird rival she managed to pick up that seemed to be the most painfully awkward human being in _existence_. 

(It was a lot more subtly disturbing, now, knowing the hows and the whys surrounding his previously-sheltered worldview.)

“Didn’t he turn out to be a member of Team Plasma?” Karla continued, brow scrunching up in thought.

Hilda internally winced, regretting her decision to downplay his involvement so her mother wouldn’t worry about her run-ins with a cult-gang boss. “Um, yeah, you could say that. He was their “king”, but more of a figurehead?”

Of course, Karla zeroed in on the most concerning part. “Their _king_?”

“A _figurehead_ ,” Hilda stressed. “Ghetsis was the one calling the shots, really- the thefts, the blatant cruelty cases, the mysterious disappearances.” She exhaled, almost imagining that steam was coming from her breath. “The inner circle of Plasma was just… it was _so_ fucked up, Mom.” She swallowed drily, remembering the Plasma members in the castle she’d cornered and interrogated, the files she’d found desperately rifling around for anything that might be a weakness to Zekrom. “Some real scientology kind of shit. Ghetsis raised his kid just for the purpose of this- this insane idea to conquer Unova with the dragon like it’s the Dark Ages again.”

The surge of hate she felt at Ghetsis’s name almost surprised Hilda- a foreign-familiar sensation, a thousands-years-old protective instinct. She hadn’t killed anyone in this life, but if she ever had to start, that man would be her first and only target.

“And it worked, because while I was in Icirrus, N woke up Zekrom.”

Karla choked on her own spit. Hilda couldn’t blame her. “It’s- you- and you _fought_ this person? And won?” Visibly panicking, Karla held her head in shaking hands. “You could have _died_ , Hilda.”

“Hey, hey, it’s okay, I had some things to even out the score,” Hilda consoled. And placed a pokeball on the table between them. “The first of which is here. Reshiram. Where one goes, the other soon follows.”

Karla’s hands fell away, looking at the innocuous pokeball with caution. “That… would explain how you won.”

“It’s not the only thing. Mom, I’ve…” Hilda released a shaking breath. “I’ve _done this before_ , Mom. A long, long time ago, when the Grand Dragon couldn’t pick an heir, so it split and we fought over the crown and it was- I _never_ want to fight N again, and it’s the same for him.” The words rushed out of her like a flood-swollen river. Hilda wasn’t going to regale her poor mother with the grisly details, but even though it was like looking through water-glass, Hilda _remembered_ the war, from the point of view of the one who commanded it. 

She and her brother killed each other, thousands of years ago. And Hilda had no intention of repeating their (her) mistakes. 

“You- it-” Karla glanced down at the pokeball containing the legend, rocking gently with the train’s motions. “Did it _do_ something to you?”

It- oh. Reshiram, a pokemon out of time, one that some people _worshiped_. It was a valid concern. “Nah, it’s the other way around really- the only reason they woke up in the first place was because I always _was_ the old Hero of Truth. It just… stayed below the surface, is all.”

At Karla’s obvious disbelief, Hilda elaborated. “Like… I remember the War of Heroes- not perfectly, but I remember chunks of it.” Surveying the battlefield from a bone-breaking height atop Reshiram’s feathered back, the rush of heat as the world beneath her vanished in a wash of dragonfire, the feather-sharp lash of Zekrom’s lightning, strong enough to dig past Reshiram’s Protect-

Oh yes, Hilda remembered the war. And it made her all the more determined never to repeat the same violent mistakes she did as a King of Unova.

“I’m pretty sure N remembered his past life before I did- at Dragonspiral Tower, I think.” No wonder he’d looked so spooked when she emerged onto the Tower’s peak, if the overlay of memories was as confusing for him as it was for her, in Plasma Castle, after Reshiram awoke. It made sense, since he was so stubbornly _sure_ Reshiram would stir in its slumber if she had the Light Stone. 

He’d not only gotten a head start on her in the Elite Four, but also in sorting out his past life. Feh. 

Karla sucked in a shaking breath, interrupting Hilda’s musing. “So, you… remember this past life. Say I believe you. What is your name?”

Hilda’s blood froze. It wasn’t hard to hear the underlying buzz of ‘ _Am I speaking to my daughter, or a long-dead king wearing her skin?_ ’

“It’s Hilda, Mom.” She said, reaching for Reshiram’s pokeball and clutching it close. “I’m still me. We’re both different people, from our past lives.” Hilda grinned, and it was only half-forced. “I think I’ll keep the ‘brother’ part though. If there's one thing I miss from back then, it’s that.”

Karla exhaled, shuddering. “I- I’m sorry. This is just- it’s a lot. Can we… start from the beginning? Explain everything.”

That was a tall order. But doable. “Right. Um. Well, in Accumula Town, I met a rival, and had the weirdest sense of recognition-”

\--

The moment they arrived home and unpacked, Hilda dragged her mother out to the more remote forests east of Nuvema, riding on the back of Karla’s Stoutland. 

In a tree-guarded clearing, Karla glanced up at the sky- the sun was setting soon. “Is it necessary to do this right now?”

“I mean, not right away, yeah, but it’s important that they know you,” Hilda shrugged. And threw the pokeball.

Reshiram was… far, far larger than Karla expected; she couldn’t even tell how much of it was the dragon’s actual size, and how much if it was the sheer _presence_ it exuded. 

Forty feet of flame and feather and smoke stooped down to Karla’s eye level, their chin nearly brushing the grass. They inhaled, pulling at her hair and clothes, then exhaled, their breath hot as the wind off a wildfire. 

Karla swallowed, throat dry, as that strangely intelligent gaze weighed her. Behind her, her Stoutland crouched low to the ground, almost as if wanting to back away.

The gaze retreated, turning to the side to gently nuzzle Hilda. Her daughter paid no mind to the arm-length fangs frighteningly close to her, instead clapping her hands together. “Oh, looks like they approve! They aren’t exactly a house-pokemon, y’know, but you should still get to know each other.”

Karla really, _really_ didn’t want to know what would have happened if Reshiram hadn’t approved.

But since they did, well, Karla had to admit that white fluff Hilda dragged her fingers through looked _very_ soft…

(Weeks ago, another parent, though undeserving of the title, saw his child’s immortal companion for the first time. 

Ghetsis strode into the throne room, the Shadow Triad watching, unseen, from the rafters. N looked up from his conversation with his beast as Ghetsis approached, hailing him with a shallow bow. “Young Lord, if you would give me a moment of your time?”

“Please, Father, it’s just us. There’s no need for formality,” N said, smiling softly. Everything about the boy was _soft_ \- his heart, his will, his ambitions. Everything, except the storm-dark dragon at his back. 

“In that case, indulge your elderly father, and listen to his wisdom. I believe telling that trainer of the Light Stone’s existence was a mistake.” A _mistake_ was the least of it. It was the height of idiocy, giving your enemy a weapon of equal power and then _inviting them to stab you_. 

N’s brow furrowed, as if genuinely confused in the face of such an obvious conclusion. “It’s destiny, though, isn’t it? Unova as it is began with a war between the dragons, and it will end the same way.” His eyes were distant, foggy. “This time, I’ll win.”

Ghetsis kept his face calm, and understanding, though he was certainly _not_ feeling charitable towards such foolishness at the moment. “After you’ve worked so hard for this moment… It would break my heart, to see you fall, my son. I can arrange for the trainer to be _elsewhere_ , as you take the Champion’s chair.”

‘Elsewhere’ could mean many things to Ghetsis. Most of the time, it meant ‘lying in pieces beneath Hydreigon.’

N stood, startled. “Wait- but-”

“She would not be harmed,” Ghetsis lied, reassuring. “Simply detained somewhere safe, until all the pokemon are free.”

“No.” N said, with more finality than he’d ever pointed towards Ghetsis, voice laced with static and steel. “I need to fight her. I _need_ to know which one of us is right.”

Ghetsis inhaled sharply, fist shaking beneath his robe, but then froze, looking at the two creatures before him, still as the sky and steady as a storm.

For the briefest moment, so ruthlessly snuffed out that he would forget it ever happened, Ghetsis felt fear looking at the thing he created and molded; the thing that commanded an equally strange creature, forty feet of thunderheads and night and lightning. 

Zekrom lowered its head, hovering just over the top of N’s cap. Its mouth parted just enough to see a crack of fangs, backlit by spark-glows in its gullet. 

Ghetsis bowed shallowly, stiffly, and left, and did _not_ think of it as a retreat.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hilda: Wow she's taking all these bombs I’m dropping way better than I thought.
> 
> Karla, coasting comfortably through a full-on mental breakdown: Okay okay okay okay. Sure. This may as well also happen.
> 
> Fun fact! In the first iteration of this fic, I made it so that with the body (Kyurem) left behind as a husk, the other two dragons needed a ‘base’ to build a physical body off of. King Zhenya nearly bled himself out to provide Zekrom with a base (blood) and King Reyes cut off his hand to provide Reshiram with a base (bone). I ended up not really using the idea, since it didn’t fit well in the pokemon world vibes I was going for, but some lines still exist as artifacts of that idea. Mostly because they Sound Cool tbh.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So both N and Hilda have slight design alterations. N was just losing the Obvious Metal Conductors, because I figure most trainers with a lot of zappy pokemon aren’t keen on getting electrocuted on accident. Hilda wears tights under her shorts for the same reason anybody riding any animal keeps their legs covered. That shit hurts after a while. Windbreaker because high-speed flying, also it gets cold up there.
> 
> Culturally, it’s a common and almost-expected thing to have rivals for your journey- usually someone from your hometown by virtue of starting off on the same level, but it’s not uncommon to meet a rival in the earlier steps of the journey. So the weirdest part of picking up N as a rival to Hilda was, well, N himself. Once the whole ‘king of team plasma’ bomb was dropped, the ‘enemy’ got tacked on alongside the ‘rival’ status, but didn’t replace it. Which is fortunate for N, lmao, because he is more than capable of being a little asshole and Hilda is very easy to get riled up. Siccing your pokemon on a person who’s not, like, threatening your life? Big no-no, though her Gigalith has _definitely_ threatened to squish him outside of Mistralton Gym.

The past King of Unova, First Hero of Truth, Conqueror of a Thousand Leagues, slouched at her desktop in an objectively terrible posture, sweatpants and hoodie already showing singes from the Larvesta snuggling on her lap. 

Technically Hilda was supposed to still be recovering, but she had too much to worry about, and too much to _do_. While mostly confined to light work until the doctors were sure there was no permanent effect from the light zap she’d gotten from Zekrom, Hilda still felt the itch to do something. Which led her here, to a reputable forum for trainers and rehabbers, asking for advice on the extremely aggressive abuse case she’d picked up. 

Upon hearing that said abuse case was an adult Hydreigon, most of the responses gently told her to keep an open mind about euthanasia as an option- human-aggressive pokemon were dangerous as it was, but Hydreigon in particular were legendarily difficult to work with.

Obviously, she ignored that particular brand of advice. She hadn’t stolen Hydreigon from Ghetsis just to give up so easily.

Her Xtransceiver vibrated on the desk, and Hilda jerked in her seat. Larvesta sleepily hissed at her for disturbing his slumber, and she stroked his fur in apology. “Yeah, yeah, sorry, fluffbutt.”

… The number was unknown, and there were no contact details. Hesitantly, Hilda held up the Xtransceiver and picked up. The only thing visible on the screen was the out-of-focus brim of a hat, a fuzz of green bangs just visible at the bottom of the screen. 

Hilda choked back an amused snort. “Uh, dude, you got it tilted a bit too far up.”

As N re-adjusted the Xtranceiver, propping it against what looked to be a mossy rock, Hilda winced at the bandages spiralling around his hands and upper arms. Hilda’s faint branch of lichtenberg scars inflicted when she’d gotten too close to Zekrom and Reshiram’s clash stung in sympathy, and _she’d_ gotten actual medical care; both of them knew N needed to leave before first response and Interpol arrived at the throne room. When he’d stepped onto Zekrom’s back, Hilda rattled off her number and told- or threatened, really- him to call her soon, so they could actually _talk_ about the whole heroes and kings mess. 

And N hadn’t left a moment too soon, for just as Zekrom was a black dot on the horizon, the first Interpol agents rushed into the scene of the battle. They’d bought her ‘ _Oh, I couldn’t catch him, and I don’t know what direction he went_ ’ act fairly easily, at least.

And now, well- he didn’t look _terrible_ , for a teenager on the run, but ‘scruffy’ seemed to be a normal thing for him. He still didn’t have his jewelry, which made sense- they were identifiers, and with Zekrom around they were far too much of a conducting hazard. 

Still, she had to ask where he even got an Xtranceiver so fast, what with his face plastered alongside Ghetsis’s as some of Unova’s Most Wanted for terrorism. “Where _did_ you get an Xtranceiver so quick? I thought you didn’t have one.”

“Oh, that.” He tilted his head to the side. “Zoroark brought me one.”

“... N. Did Zoroark steal an Xtranceiver?”

Background chittering, likely from a far-too-pleased Zoroark. “He says he won’t answer without a lawyer present.” Amused silence. “He does not know what a lawyer is.”

This time Hilda was far less successful keeping down the laughter bubbling up. “I mean, that’s one way plausible deniability could work.” Her laughter soon died, though, as she remembered the gravity of the oncoming conversation.

“So,” Hilda began. “When did you start to remember, _your majesty_?” She punctuated the title with an edge of venom. 

Scowling, but otherwise unbothered by the mockery, N simply answered “At Dragonspiral Tower. Zekrom’s first words, greeting me as a beloved companion and old friend… you know how it feels. Like every part of you is being _seen_.”

Hilda exhaled a shuddering breath, recalling the sensation like dragon-smoke seeping into her lungs. “Yeah, I do know. Though I can’t talk to Reshiram the way you can.” She frowned, curious. “How _can_ you do that, anyway? And you somehow healed my pokemon before we fought Ghetsis. That’s _definitely_ not something King Zhenya could do.” Hilda carefully separated N from his past life, as she tried to for herself and King Reyes; there were some fond memories, exhilarating ones even, but more often than not they were also violent.

And there was enough baggage laden in this conversation _without_ including the past fratricide. 

Puzzled, N tilted his head in a way that was almost reminiscent of a Tranquill. “I just can. I found it odd others couldn’t, if anything.” Contemplatively, he pulled at the grass he sat on. “My sisters are similar, but they cannot speak to pokemon, or truly heal- only soothe.” 

Hilda’s breath hitched. “Wait- sisters?”

“I- yes? Anthea and Concordia- my half-sisters, by a different mother. I do not know if you met them at the castle, but there is a possibility you happened across them.”

“I mean- yeah, I talked to them a little bit, but not for long. I was on kind of a tear, at the moment.” Sheepishly, Hilda rubbed at the back of her neck. ‘On a tear’ was a _mild_ way of putting her blazing rampage up to the throne room. “I’m pretty sure they’re in custody of some sort- I can check on them for you?”

“Please do,” N said, visibly relieved. Huh, he really _had_ been worried about them. “They are- they can be in frail health, sometimes. They don’t deserve any of this.”

 _Neither did you_ , Hilda thought, before squashing it. Though she was inclined to sympathize with him due to the apparent familial relationship- if not one by blood- she still wanted to get to know him as _Hilda_ , not as Reyes feeling guilty about the brother he fought. 

“I’ll do what I can. But for now can we just… talk? Pretty much every time we met, we fought, so we don’t really _know_ each other.” _Not like we used to, thousands of years and a war ago_.

“... I would like that too, actually.” A faint rumble, as Zekrom settled further into their rest. “How about the little bug? I don’t recall seeing him on your journey.”

Hilda held up the somewhat-disgruntled Larvesta for the camera. “Oh, this little dude? Well, I was travelling around Route 18, and…”

It was nice, talking about something mundane. Something that wasn’t past wars or cultish upbringings or memories that should have stayed dead. Just a pair of teenagers, casually discussing their dearest companions. 

\--

Reshiram’s long claws left faint gouges when they landed, south of Opelucid and just out of sight of the neon-lined city. 

It was nice to get out of Nuvema for a while. Hilda always had to have a goal to chase; a roadblock to push through, thoughts to outrun, worried mothers to take a break from. The suggestion of therapy was appreciated for what it was- a _suggestion_. Hilda was doing just fine, really. It was just some battles and a minor electrical injury. Nobody had died, and nobody had started a war, so Hilda thought that the encounter at Plasma Castle had gone _awesome_ , actually. She’d even gotten a friend out of it, kinda.

On foot, Hilda blended in well with the steady stream of trainers coming and going out of the Dragon City, though she did not follow the flow to the pokecenter or the gym.

She knocked at her destination, and a familiar bearded visage loomed over her. 

“Oh! You’re early, Hilda,” Drayden greeted, swinging the door open wider to invite her to enter. 

“Reshiram is a very fast flyer, I kinda forget sometimes.” Hilda bent down to greet the Deino running loose in the house, patiently waiting for it to finish sniffing at her jacket. She’d taken to wearing tights and a windbreaker nowadays, what with the high-speed flying. “Where’s Iris, by the way?”

Drayden chuckled, with the slightest humorously sinister edge to it. “I set her on the gym podium for today- she needs the experience.”

“Oh, I pity the poor bastards who want their badge today, then.” Hilda shook her head, mocking. And then sobered, picking out a particular pokeball from her bag. “Thanks for helping me, and letting me use your dojo for this. I’m not sure what else could hold him if he starts losing it, and I don’t want to risk him flying off in the open air.” Not when it could literally get somebody killed, with this particular pokemon’s track record. “It is big enough to hold Reshiram too, right? Just in case?”

“Of course,” Drayden rumbled, leading the way down the lengthy flight of stairs to the Gym Leader’s personal pokemon dojo. “Many of the dragon types we train reach truly magnificent sizes.”

“Good.” Hilda breathed, entering the truly massive dojo. Chances were they’d need to restrain Hydreigon if things went sideways, and Reshiram was more than powerful enough to scruff it and hold it down. She hoped it wouldn’t come to that, though. Hilda had done what she could to get Hydreigon used to her, even if just through the barrier of the pokeball- she set it on a log while she trained her other pokemon, kept it right beside her bed, hell, she even _talked_ to it all the time. 

First, though, their safety net. Reshiram shook their feathers out as she released them, surveying the dojo with a calm, blade-level stare. 

Drayden sucked in a breath behind her, silenced by the sight before him. “Honored dragon,” he said, bowing humbly as one might before a king of old. 

Reshiram glanced at him, unfazed. Returned to their examination of the provided dojo.

Hilda would not laugh. She would _not_. The almost-gobsmacked look on Drayden’s face had enough of a ripple of worry on it that Hilda took pity on the man. Swatting Reshiram’s leg playfully, she admonished “Hey, be polite to him. He’s a respected leader.”

Reshiram ignored both her scolding and Drayen’s expression, snorting smoke and shaking their head.

“Okay, yeah, I get it,” Hilda muttered. Sorted through her bag for Hydreigon’s pokeball.

“They… already know what to do, I suppose?” Drayden asked incredulously. 

“Oh, yeah, we covered it days ago.” At his look of confusion, she elaborated. “Reshiram understands us perfectly, though some modern sayings trip them up a bit. I’m pretty sure they know how to read, too. They know a lot more languages than _I_ do, that’s for sure.”

Throat dry, Hilda held up a pokeball. “Right. Let’s see how this goes.”

Upon release, Hydreigon was eerily silent. His lips curled in a low, rumbling snarl- baring fangs at even the immortal dragon that was in an entirely different weight class.

“You said this one has killed people before?” Drayden said lowly, concerned. At the word, Hydreigon swivelled three heads and all his attention on to Drayden.

Hilda snapped her fingers at Hydreigon. “Hey, no, eyes on me.” She turned to whisper to Drayden. “But yes, he has. Ghetsis had several ways of disposing of troublesome people, and this was one of them.”

Glacier slow, Hilda reached into her bag, gauging how Hydreigon’s growls heightened as she moved. The berry she pulled out was delicately plucked up by Reshiram’s fangs and disappeared down their gullet. 

Example made, Hilda retrieved a second berry, and held it in an outstretched hand- loose, unintimidated, and as comfortable as one could be in a room with a killer. 

Hydreigon crept closer, wings flaring and nostrils expanding.

He lunged, fast enough that the air snapped behind him.

Hilda backpedaled, her vision soon consumed by smoke-white. 

Hydreigon writhed, pinned in a cage of ivory claws as Reshiram growled something at him in whatever way pokemon truly communicated.

Hilda sighed. This… might take longer than she thought.

\--

After she’d booked a stay at the local Pokecenter, Hilda mulled over the _other_ reason for her visit to Opelucid. While what she’d told her mother was true- Hydreigon definitely needed some serious rehabbing, and Hilda needed the advice- she… might have left some things out. 

Interpol had a rather large office here, and it was where many investigations relating to Plasma members were headquartered. Especially since the now-defunct castle was just up north, and the Champion’s Mountain had nowhere _near_ the space needed to handle all _that_ mess.

Which led to why Hilda was here. More specifically, why she was arguing with the nonplussed secretary at the desk.

“Listen,” Hilda said, low and exasperated. She was definitely _not_ pleading. “All I want to do is talk to the person in charge of Anthea and Concordia Harmonia’s case. I was one of the Plasma Castle witnesses, and it’s important.”

“I’m sorry Miss, but you need an appointment, and currently we aren’t accepting visitors for high-ranking Plasma members until court dates have been established,” the secretary said blandly.

 _You can’t keep me from them, I’m_ \- The thought tangled in her head like a Purrloin snarled in a yarn ball. Because this woman _could_ keep Hilda from her friend’s incarcerated siblings. Hilda wasn’t the Champion, and she _certainly_ wasn’t the king of Unova.

“Need any help, Ingrid?” Coffee in hand and looking deceptively relaxed, a man rounded the corner to lean against the desk.

The casual air and loose posture were an intimidation tactic all on their own, Hilda decided. A declaration that he would not be swayed. Too bad that meant nothing to her.

Managing to look down on the man despite her significantly shorter height, Hilda declared “My name is Hilda Whitacre. I’m here to see the Harmonias in custody.”

The man’s eyebrows shot up, and wary recognition swam onto his face. “Ingrid, she’s fine. Miss Whitacre, come with me please. They can be brought up.”

Led down the halls into the depths of Opelucid Interpol, Hilda spoke. “So, you know who I am.”

“Mm, yeah. It’s in my best interest to know who’s got influence in Unova, and, well, people _worship_ Reshiram and Zekrom. Oh, Blake Schwarze, by the way,” he introduced. “There is actually a favor I want to ask you, from my supervisor. Looker was prepping to speak to you himself about it, actually.”

 _I don’t do favors for just anyone, especially not random Interpol supervisors_. “Depends on what it is. And if you agree to my terms in turn.” 

“Hm, I suppose we’ll see what we can work out,” Blake replied, politely opening the door to an interview room for her. 

Sitting imperiously upon the plastic chair as if it was her enameled throne of old, Hilda leaned across the table, elbows propped on the metal surface and avoiding a few gross-looking coffee rings. “So, I’ll start, actually. I want to talk to Anthea and Concordia, _unrecorded_ , and I want them released into either protective custody or witness protection.”

Agent Blake arched a brow. “That’s… quite the demand. There are still a lot of questions we need to ask them, and there’s the risk of them running and rejoining Ghetsis-”

Hilda almost snarled, like a Haxorus having a _really_ bad day. She certainly felt like one. “That _won’t_ be a problem, trust me. Even if they wanted to find him now, they’d never go running back after I talk to them.”

Blake leaned forward, almost eager. “You think you can get them to talk to you? Wait a minute- here.” He yanked out a notepad and scribbled out a series of scratchy bullet points. “If you can get these questions answered for us- they keep clamming up- and you do that favor for Looker, I think we can get them into protective custody and expunge their record.” He shrugged. “They don’t even legally exist besides their intake forms here, so it wouldn’t be hard.”

“What’s this favor?” Hilda asked, wary.

“Nathan and Ghetsis Harmonia are our first priorities, but the other six ‘sages’ are nowhere to be found. Agent Looker doesn’t believe in happenstance, but he does believe in patterns. He thinks you can find them a lot easier.”

Hilda grinned. With a Hydreigon familiar with the sages’ scents, and the fastest method of poke-travel in Unova? Definitely. “Oh, that's _very_ doable. I’d like to talk to them now, please.”

\--

 _They look tired_ , was Hilda’s first thought as Anthea and Concordia were escorted into the interview room. Contrast to their millenia-out-of-style dresses from Plasma Castle, they were wearing clearly-borrowed clothes, soft and form-obscuring.

They stopped and stared at her, dumbstruck. Or perhaps awestruck.

“Thank you, agent.” Hilda waved Blake off. “If you listen in, I’ll be _very_ disappointed.”

Hesitantly the two women sat across from Hilda, iron-backed and proper. Finally, Concordia broke the dam, leaning forward. “Please- you were there. What happened to Nat- to Lord N, before the police arrived?”

Hilda leaned back, surprised. They didn't tell them? “N’s fine, after our battle, I shooed him off before Interpol got there.” Hilda smirked, a bit self-satisfied. “They were a little bit too preoccupied catching flies because of Reshiram to realize that I definitely could’ve captured and held him if I wanted to.”

Anthea breathed a sigh of relief, fists unclenching. “That’s- that’s wonderful.” Her expression brittled. “And… Sage Ghetsis?”

“Escaped, unfortunately,” Hilda grumbled. “And y’know you don’t need to use titles, yeah? Especially considering y’all’s relation.” Both of them startled, plastic scraping across the floor. “Your brother’s the reason I’m here in the first place, actually. He was worried about you.”

This time it was Anthea who leaned across the table, concern sweeping across her face. “You’ve been talking to him? Is he okay?”

“He’s fine- he’s got friends wherever there are wild pokemon, yeah?” Hilda neglected to mention the burns- they’d scar, certainly, but they were for the most part superficial. “You seem… really concerned. Should I be worried too?”

Concordia reached across to her sister, gently squeezing her hand and addressing Hilda. “We… used to have a lot of siblings, in total. Sickliness was common in our bloodline, though. Beth died before I was born, but I still remember Kyla, and Leon, and Mason…” Tears welled in Concordia’s eyes, and Hilda awkwardly shifted in her seat- she was so _bad_ at comforting crying people. “Nat is the youngest, and we hardly saw him at all in the first years… there’s a lot that can go wrong, for him.”

Which Hilda wouldn’t deny. He wasn’t exactly very ill-looking though, beyond the pale appearance of the terminally-indoors that faded quickly- even in just Nacrene he’d looked so much brighter, arms full of Tirtouga and Archen and freckles dusting his nose. She’d never guess there was a history of weak constitution. 

“Hey, even so, he has a _very_ powerful friend,” she reassured. Powerful enough to carve a hundred-mile long scar into Unova in their fury at the loss of their beloved kindred King. “Zekrom will look after him.”

“And there’s another reason I came here, besides checking up on you two,” Hilda admitted. “I’ve got some questions from the agent-”

“We are no fools, Hilda.” Anthea’s eyes hardened, gray as flint. “We know anything we say will be used against us.”

Sheepishly, Hilda rubbed at the back of her neck. She’d kinda forgotten about some things… “Yeah, actually, that won’t be a problem. You’re being discharged into Witness Protection while Ghetsis and his goon squad are still at large.”

Those frightfully familiar storm-eyes narrowed further. “And what is the cost of this amnesty?”

Anthea wasn’t a fool, indeed. Rarely were such things freely given. “Oh, just hunting down a few sages, is all. Besides-” Hilda grinned, brandishing Reshiram’s pokeball between her fingers. “I’m Reshiram’s chosen companion, and _I’m_ not wanted for terrorism charges. I have some influence, if I want to use it.”

The two sisters glanced at each other, a silent conversation singing between them. They weren’t anywhere near as capital-W Weird as N was, with his odd inflections and his pokemon-influenced body language, but there was still something strange and fey about them. 

Seemingly satisfied, it was Anthea who turned to Hilda. “Ask your questions, and perhaps we can also speak another time, when we are out of this place.”

Hilda nodded decisively, unfolding the wrinkled notepaper given to her. And squinted. Tilted her head.

… Maybe she would have to bring Agent Blake in to translate. His handwriting was truly _terrible_.

\--

N’s belief in true human kindness was a new thing. Fragile as life and snow-dusted spring shoots. Strangers giving advice to a young trainer despite his somewhat surly attitude, passerby checking on what seemed to be a teenager reduced to sleeping in the woods instead of at a Center (N preferred being under the stars, but their concern was strange, and oddly warm), the elderly couple that invited him to sit with them when they caught his slow-blinking conversation with their equally-elderly Liepard.

And as such, his newfound belief was tested. And not always by strangers.

The depths of the Relic Castle were stained with memories, the sand like the sepia edging of a worn book. An old family, an old war, an old home- a very old life indeed. 

There were remnants of newer memories there, as well. Sage Ryoku trembled against a sheer sandstone wall, Zekrom’s looming form casting the sage in shadow. 

“How many before me?” N demanded, low and threatening as a rolling thunderstorm. “ _How many!?_ ”

N trembled, nails nearly drawing blood inside clenched fists and teeth grit in a snarl. As human kindness grew over him like green-soft moss, so too could the human cruelty that molded him into a puppet fester. 

To think that, if his calculations were as correct as he dreaded, he might have been one of the _luckier_ ones among his thirteen siblings. 

Ryoku blubbered apologies and pleas for mercy, but it was already far too late for him to come up with adequate excuses. The moment he mentioned the past Harmonia children as ‘failures’, he all but professed his guilt.

“ _I should slay this one for his sins,_ ” Zekrom rumbled. Their voice was so familiar-strange it took getting used to- they communicated in fully-articulate sentences, in perfect form, rather than requiring N’s brain to fill in the gaps by translating concepts and body language into something resembling mental words. “ _He may not have borne and discarded the children himself, but he is just as culpable in Ghetsis’s abuse._ ”

“Get out of here,” N muttered darkly. At Ryoku’s dumbfounded expression, he bared his teeth, mirrored by Zekrom’s spark-sharp fangs snapping above his head. “ _Leave!_ ”

Sage Ryoku fled as if all the creatures of the Torn World were on his heels.

N collapsed against Zekrom’s leg, releasing a shaky sigh. He _hated_ being that angry- a white-hot hiss of fury, targeted and deadly like a lightning strike to an iron tower. 

Ever-gentle, Zekrom’s snout still nearly bowled N over, nudging him to climb up their scales and onto their back. “ _We have found nothing here but foul memories, my [friend-companion-ward-king]. Let us leave this place and its vile words behind._ ”

He would have said he wanted to go home, if he ever had one. Sanity, stability. Familiarity… yes, that’s it. Somewhere safe to rest, with someone whose soul was as ancient as his.

“Take me to Nuvema,” N said into Zekrom’s ear. He needed to talk to Hilda.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Blake Schwarze is intended to be an imported character/reference to the Pokespe character, even though I never read that far. Obviously he’s not 12 here because c’mon man, pokemon games require some suspension of disbelief but a 12 year old Interpol officer is a bit much.
> 
> You might notice both N and Hilda referring to the two heroes in either first person or third person interchangeably. That’s on purpose I promise- depending on circumstances they either wish to distance themselves or feel closer to their past lives 
> 
> Anyways, N can be a little angy. As a treat. Not unusual among some abuse and/or cult survivors, as well. Being angry doesn’t make you a bad person. Even _hating_ doesn’t. It’s how you handle it, and what you do with it, and deciding if you want to work on it or not.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think that even to ‘psynull’ humans, N speaking to pokemon has weird Vibes to it. Like the way the brain interprets someone essentially speaking two ‘languages’ in perfect fluency at _the exact same time_. I figure a lot of his talking to pokemon thing involves a ton of ‘translating’ for himself as well- humans are very strange in the natural world for our stupidly complex majority-verbal communication system, and animals are working with completely different standards than us. Lots of N talking to pokemon would involve his brain interpreting things like body language and wordless expressed feelings and even concepts that don’t even really exist in human words. Names would be odd in that respect too, since I figure pokemon identify each other with unique characteristics more than names.
> 
> It makes conversations with Zekrom and Reshiram especially hard for him to get used to- they essentially speak in what sounds like flawless Unovan, even if it is a bit archaic sometimes. And Hilda wasn’t lying when she remarked she believes they know how to read, and know more human languages than most people do.
> 
> Speaking of dialogue! I wonder if y’all noticed N, Anthea, and Concordia’s slightly different dialogue style compared to other characters- it’s meant to be a bit more archaic in a similar vein to Zekrom and Reshiram on purpose. 
> 
> if you see any spelling/grammar errors let me know, I’ll get them fixed!

The first stuttering knock didn’t register to Karla- a wind-raising storm was on the radar for tonight, and though there was no rain, the trees still scraped at her home with the force of it.

The second knock, far more insistent, prompted her Stoutland to raise his head from his snoozing and stare at the door, nose quivering and whiskers twitching. 

_It’s ten at night_ , Karla thought, and reeled through any possible visitors or expected deliveries, coming up with nothing. 

Cautious, especially with her daughter at home, Karla crooked a finger, calling Stoutland to her side. After a few anxiety-inducing conversations with Hilda about what she’d seen, who she used to be, and who she’d fought in the past, Karla considered herself justifiably paranoid about unexpected guests knocking at her door hours past sundown. 

With the reassuring bulk of Stoutland next to her, Karla opened the door, slow and creaking like the oaks in the oncoming storm.

The startled face that met her was familiar- she’d seen it on the news.

“Um,” Nathan Harmonia, wanted for acts of terrorism under the moniker ‘King N’, said dumbly. “Hello, uh, Mrs. Whitacre?”

Karla slammed the door shut, with enough force that it thrummed through the walls. 

She whipped her head back at the _clunk-thunk_ sounds of her daughter’s ungainly descent down the stairs, who looked frankly a bit ridiculous in pokeball-patterned pajamas and a graphic hoodie with her Larvesta clinging to her front like some kind of reversed backpack. “Who’s at the door?”

As if on cue, N knocked on the door again, and Karla resisted the urge to groan into her hands. 

A strange rock-grinding trill seeped through the door, muffled, and Hilda cocked her head. “Is that… an Archeops?” Narrowing her eyes, she shoved past Stoutland and yanked open the door.

“Hilda, I’m sorry to-” N choked on that last word as Hilda hauled him in by the arm, ignoring the Archeops’s offended growls as it hop-skipped inside. 

“Someone could _see you_ ,” she hissed furtively. Narrowed her eyes sleepily. “... Dude, you look terrible. What’s up with the late-night visit?”

And Hilda was _right_. N looked like someone on the losing end of an all-nighter, swaying like the wind-bent trees outside and hair a windblown mess. And despite his height he looked very… _young_. Eighteen, Karla remembered.

But still. The edge of a lightning burn creeping up Hilda’s neck was enough of a reminder as to how _dangerous_ the boy was. “Young lady, care to tell me why you let _Plasma’s King_ into the house?”

“Former,” N corrected, quietly, but with a half-wild edge to his eyes that reminded Karla of feral Liepard. “I’m not- I don’t intend to-”

“Nat, you’re fine. Go sit down or something, looking at you makes _me_ want to sleep for a week.” Punctuating her point, Hilda shoved him, unresisting, towards the couch in front of the TV. Over her shoulder, she whispered to Karla, pleading. “I know you don’t trust him, but please be nice. You know who he is to me.”

King Zhenya, reborn. As Hilda was the elder brother Reyes, born again in the same era. 

Wistfully, Karla wished she’d kept the good wine. She really could use a glass or five, given the circumstances. At least N looked as awkward as Karla felt, folded onto the couch with his Archeops peeking its head over the back of it.

There is a strange almost-tension in the living room, as her daughter sat beside her brother from a past life, depositing her Larvesta into his lap. Both wariness and relaxation, trust and distrust. He did relax, though, appearing far less like a prickly feral pokemon one impulsive decision away from bolting.

 _Why in the name of all the legends was he intimidated by_ her _?_ Karla wondered. She was certainly _far_ from the most powerful person in the room.

“I talked to your sisters in holding, by the way,” Hilda started casually- but not carelessly. 

That startled N out of whatever… communication he was having with Larvesta. “Truly?”

“Yup. They’ll be in protective housing until Ghetsis and the Shadow Triad are arrested, but they won’t be charged- they didn’t actually _do_ anything illegal, anyway.” Hilda slipped a particular pokeball out of her hoodie pocket. “There are some benefits to having Reshiram’s counsel- and you’re next, by the way.” Hilda gestured almost lazily towards N, a king casually bestowing a boon. “It won’t be until Interpol gets their hands on Ghetsis, but I think I can get you a similar deal, if you want it.”

“He’s still a wanted man,” Karla pointed out. “Do you really think they’d drop the charges, especially so soon?”

Hilda scowled, belligerent. “When I’m champion I’ll _make_ them drop the charges. Alder lets himself be pushed around too much by League Officials- all he could do was let N go before Interpol got there.”

Now this was a surprise. “You plan to take the challenge again?”

Hilda glanced toward the Larvesta napping in N’s lap. By its size it had to be close to evolving. “Not yet, but soon. I gotta train more if I want to really be prepared for him.”

“Even with Reshiram?” Karla questioned, thinking that the sheer gravity the legendary dragon exuded would be enough to bring Alder’s team to his knees.

“I won’t be using Reshiram,” her daughter declared, firm. “It wouldn’t be sporting.” Shivered, as if shooing away the chill of a nearby ghost. “Besides, I’m pretty sure the implications of rolling up to one of the current leaders of Unova and kicking his ass with Reshiram wouldn’t be ignored.”

The implications- oh. Unova hadn’t had a king in millennia, but the divine right to rule bestowed by the grand dragons was the stuff of legends, literally. And it was by virtue of the dragons- or, at one point, the singular dragon- that the Unovan royal line conquered and held so much territory in the first place. It was an implication that Plasma exploited in the first place, as N ascended the steps of the League with Zekrom to conquer it.

“And bringing them would just be askin’ for tragedy in the first place,” Hilda breezed on. “I don’t think the poor man could take another death in his team- it's a damn miracle Zekrom didn’t accidentally kill one of them.”

Karla swallowed drily, glancing at Reshiram’s pokeball like it was a nuclear bomb. And it might as _well_ be.

“It wasn’t a miracle,” N said, quietly, fingers automatically stroking through Larvesta’s fuzz. Belatedly, Karla took note of the healed burns curling, almost lovingly, around his hands and arms. The legendary pokemon were very dangerous, indeed. “We trained for that battle- for weeks. It was as if teaching a Haxorus to hold a Pidove egg in its jaws, and never leave a single crack.”

Reshiram and Zekrom were legendary. Immortal. But unlike any other regions’ patrons, they were war-mounts, as well as counsel for their chosen humans. The combination was far more frightening, when it wasn’t confined to a history book.

“But that’s not why I flew here,” N continued. “It’s… Ghetsis- you deserve to know. Both of us do.”

Hilda’s brow scrunched in visible confusion. “Okay, and what do you mean by that, because you’re kinda worrying me here…”

“I would just rather speak in private.” N inclined his head to Karla, wary. “It’s more of a… family matter.”

 _So he knows that my daughter told me about the whole… kings thing. Interesting_.

“Now wait a minute, she already knows everything going on with me, so you can say it in front of her,” Hilda demanded.

“Because it’s not _about you_. It’s about the others,” N grit out, hands curling as far as they were able into fists. 

Hilda flung her hands up, exasperated. “This is always the problem with you! You’re so damn _cryptic_ , just tell me!” Gesticulated wildly toward Karla. “She’s my mom, if anything she can _help-_ ”

“Hilda,” Karla interrupted, firm. Because considering the _last_ fight these two had, she did _not_ want to see a repeat performance; as much as she wished to know what information could possibly be so dire, the remains of Zekrom and Reshiram’s battle haunted her mind still. “If it’s not life-threatening, it can wait until it’s not _nearly midnight_. And until you’re not inside the house.” She stood, dusting her pants off and patting Stoutland on the head when he pressed his face into her side. “Take the couch.”

Eyes flickering from her to Hilda, N said “I’d rather just sleep outside.”

As if on cue, a particularly loud rumble echoed. The resulting storm-spray of water punctuated the cacophony.

Hilda snickered as N looked out the window, resigned. “... Thank you for the couch, Mrs. Whitacre.”

Hilda tugged a blanket from the back of the couch and flung it at him, looking pleased with herself when he turned just in time to get whapped in the face with it. She’d always been like that- quick to cool, despite her heated temper. “Fine, I’ll see you in the morning. Feel free to let your pokemon loose- the ones that’ll fit, anyways.”

Before Karla could even open her mouth to object, the room was four pokemon fuller. “Fine, just- don’t let them chew on anything. Or destroy something.”

N relayed the request to them, serious. The Klinklang buzz-clattered something at him, and Karla couldn’t help being unnerved by the almost-inhuman smoke-whisper undertone in N’s response. “You do not need to guard me here, friend. Please rest.”

A stubborn shudder, and the gear pokemon drifted to a corner, watchful. Just as vigilant, N looked at her, unmoving and unblinking and _unsettling as hell._

Hilda’s quick side-hug snapped her out of it. “G’night Mom. See ya tomorrow, Nat,” she waved at the fugitive perched on their couch.

Karla followed her daughter upstairs to the bedrooms.

She locked her door behind her, and Stoutland slept at the foot of her bed.

\--

Karla woke to find Stoutland gone from his usual spot. She shivered, cold despite the morning light after throwing her comforter off; outside, last night’s rain had frosted over the windows and the grass, cold enough to warrant putting on a sweater indoors. 

Still sleep-fogged, Karla plodded down the stairs for coffee and catching up with the news when she almost tripped on the last stair.

Ah, she’d almost forgotten about the most wanted teenager in Unova sleeping on her couch. 

N himself was difficult to see, curled inwards towards the couch back, wild mane of green hair the only thing visible beneath the blanket.

He was also _surrounded_ by pokemon- a Zoroark draped over the back and squashing the cushions down, Carracosta hunched in its shell and leaning against the side, Archeops with its head tucked under a wing and perched on the couch arm, even her own Stoutland snoozing on the living room floor was sidled up next to the sleeping boy. His Klinklang was still on guard in the corner, and the faintest tuft of Larvesta’s fluff peeked out from where it was nestled in his arms.

_This is what brought the League to its knees?_

The peace shattered with a shriek from upstairs- surprise, rather than pain. “ _Nat!_ ” Hilda bellowed from her room, reminding Karla all too much of the outraged yelling matches between her sisters.

The living room exploded, N jerking off the couch and landing in a blanket-tangled mess on Stoutland, whose startled growls set off all the _other_ pokemon in the room.

Before Karla could call for her own pokemon out of the cacophony of shrieking and growling and snarling, N grit his teeth and said, in a shriek-growl-snarl of his own, “ _Enough!_ ”

The chaos cut off like a knife, leaving the silence bleeding but for the uneven thumps of someone descending the stairs. 

Hilda stomped straight towards N, the culprit of her rude awakening brandished in front of her. The Vanilluxe, for its part, looked utterly pleased to be held- considering how heavy they could be when not floating, if Vanilluxe wanted to be released, it would be. “Dude. Where did you find a Vanilluxe that’s _cuddly_. He stuffed himself inside my comforter and it’s like getting _dunked in an ice bath_.”

Rumpled and distinctly scowly, N sarcastically replied “I apologize that he _likes people_.” Gestured to take the Vanilluxe from Hilda, who retreated and stubbornly held the pokemon against her chest in a bear-hug.

“Uh, no, I never said I was giving him _back_. My ice-pack now,” Hilda retorted, voice edged in a playful sort of spite. “You have Larvesta, so I’m keeping this guy hostage in exchange.”

The ‘hostage’ in question trilled like thawing ice, and N’s expression softened. “If that is what you wish, then.”

It was obvious he was talking to the Vanilluxe, rather than the human. Karla didn’t think she’d _ever_ get used to the static-shimmer undertones in his voice when he spoke to pokemon. 

“Cool.” Still holding the pokemon, Hilda looked to Karla with a question in her eyes. “Hey, do you think the Prof will let us use her lab property?” Turned back to N. “She’s got a really big private space in the woods behind the lab, and since we’re gonna be working with Hydreigon I’d like all the assurances I can get. It’s private, too, for whatever it is you needed to talk about.”

N tilted his head quizzically. “Wait, we are? Why are we working with Hydreigon?”

Hilda shifted from foot to foot. “Yeah, uh, that deal I mentioned for Anthea and Concordia? It wasn’t for free. The other sages still are at large, and Agent Looker thought I could find them.” She shrugged, careful not to jostle Vanilluxe. “Hydreigon actually knew them, so I figured talking to him would give us a place to start.”

“I… have reason to track a sage as well,” N admitted. “You are sure the professor’s territory will keep us hidden? And Hydreigon from leaving?” A pause. “Will she even let us use it?”

“Oh, sure, if her partner asks.” Hilda waved towards Karla demonstratively. 

“And who says I will convince Aurea to let you two run amok outside her lab?” Karla crossed her arms, brow raised. 

Her daughter didn’t even pause. “Because I’ve already been back there to work with Reshiram in private, it’s close to professionals in case things go sideways with Hydreigon, and-” Hilda leaned against Karla, affectionate and sly. “-because you love me, and I’m asking super nicely for you to let my friend and I chat with some dragons.”

With a beleaguered sigh, Karla extricated herself from her position as Hilda’s crutch. “Okay, yes, fine, but only because I know you'd run off and do it anyway.”

“Thanks!” Hilda beamed, and moved off to get her coat. Karla shook her head despairingly, and went to grab her keys and bag from the countertop, avoiding N as much as possible without being obvious.

N had watched the entire exchange silently, still as ice-brittle stone. He’d also visibly relaxed when Karla moved away from Hilda. 

Karla did not think about the implications behind such subtle tells.

\--

Parked at Aurea’s doorstep with two teenagers in tow, Karla suddenly regretted allowing this trip, as Hilda patted N’s arm and said “You’re a crappy liar, so let me do the talking, okay?” 

N simply nodded, and pulled the brim of his cap down further. “Indeed. Our last encounter went… poorly.”

Which raised some _questions_ in Karla. She had no time to address them, though, as the door swung open to reveal Aurea’s face, her hair still down from her sleep. 

“Morning, Professor! We need to borrow your lab grounds to work with Reshiram and Hydreigon, if you don’t mind.”

Aurea raised a brow, surprised. “And who is this?” she gestured to N, who was doing his best to blend in next to Hilda despite being at _least_ seven inches taller. 

“Oh, you haven’t met? That’s my brother, Nathan.”

Aurea’s other eyebrow rose to join the first.

“... He’s adopted?” Hilda tacked on lamely, and Karla made a valiant effort in not smacking her palm to her forehead. 

“Uh-huh, sure,” Aurea said blandly, but opened the door for them anyways. “Make sure Reshiram is polite to the other pokemon, please.”

“Thanks Professor!” Hilda called over her shoulder as she and N beat a hasty retreat out the backdoor. 

Visibly concerned, Aurea turned her attention to Karla. “Want to tell me why a wanted criminal just breezed through my lab with your daughter?”

Karla gave into the urge. It felt so _good_ to release the built-up pressure as she groaned into her hands. “He literally showed up at my doorstep. Hilda didn’t ask if we could keep him, but she was definitely close.”

“Is everything okay? Do I need to call someone for you?” Aurea frowned, gently taking Karla’s hands in her own. 

“It’s- no- I-” She sighed. “He’s… N is fine. Hilda cares about him in a way I don’t really _get_ , after their fights, but it’s… Reshiram, or something.” Karla trailed off. Which was true, in a way, but something caught in her throat as she thought about explaining further. That… there were a lot of things Karla would do for her daughter’s safety, but exposing Hilda’s soul- that wasn’t her secret to tell. Not yet.

“Reshiram and Zekrom used to be the same pokemon…” Aurea murmured. “I just… worry sometimes. I only met him once, but he left an impression.”

Karla jerked her head up. “What? When?”

“In Chargestone Cave. He wasn’t exactly my biggest fan, and made that fact _very_ clear.” Aurea squeezed her hands tighter, reassuring. “Rather like a Haxorus pacing at its territory line- all snarl and teeth, but little in the way of actual _malice_.”

Karla sighed, relieved. Her partner had always been more adept at reading people and pokemon- and it seemed both of those applied to N. “Do you think he’s dangerous?”

A heavy pause. “I think anyone with Zekrom at their beck and call is outrageously dangerous. But I also think that means your daughter will be fine, with Reshiram.” Aurea pulled back. “I’m still thinking about calling the police if _anything_ seems off, though.”

“I almost did myself,” Karla grumbled. “But it would really upset Hilda, I think. And if an Interpol raid showed up at the house with them both in it…” She suppressed a shiver. “Things would go badly very, very fast. Neither of them would just let him go, and two legendaries defending somebody…”

“Yeah, I get it. I still sometimes look at the Bay of Fire and Bay of Lightning on the map and have to remind myself one of the creatures that did that is currently in my backyard,” Aurea said sardonically. “They’ll be fine.”

“I have to ask though-” Aurea’s face lifted in thought and her eyes lit up with possibilities. “-can N really talk to pokemon, verbally? There are some powerful psychics that form empathic bonds with their pokemon, but they’re almost always psychic types themselves, and it’s emotionally-based rather than verbally-based-”

Even a teenaged terrorist hanging out in her lab could take a backseat to Aurea’s eternally-curious nature, it seemed.

\--

Sprawled on the grass next to N underneath Reshiram’s cloud-feathers, Hilda rolled Hydreigon’s pokeball through her fingers contemplatively. “So, what had you so out of whack that you showed up at my house out of nowhere after dark?”

N didn’t respond, instead silently plucking at the grass they sat on, strand by strand. “Do you remember dying?” he finally said, solemn.

Hilda paused, taken aback by the suddenness of it. Bones shaking and muscles twitching with lightning. A storm-slick dagger in her shoulder as Reshiram and Zekrom raged above. Oh yes, she remembered dying. “Yes- kinda,” Hilda corrected herself. “It’s kinda blurry, but yeah.”

N lowered his head, bowed under so great a shame that it could crush mountains. “I… deeply wish it was otherwise. That I- that Zhenya- hadn’t killed you.”

“It’s fine. I was trying to stab you too, at the moment.” It wasn’t fine, it would never _be_ fine, but Hilda couldn’t think about it too much without wanting to claw her heart out of her own chest. “Pretty sure my son killed you right back, so let’s call it even. That’s… we were _literally_ different people, then.”

Hilda didn’t think she could forgive Zhenya for what he’d done. But she already forgave N, for what _he_ did.

“But… why?” Hilda couldn’t help but ask. What on earth had brought that up, that they both tried so hard to shove down into the darkest shadow-streaked recesses of their memories?

“I-” A dry swallow. “I’ve just been thinking about- about the others. Their fates.”

Something akin to dread welled up at his words, ominous as the setting sun. “What others?”

N was silent, shifting and still like the world’s tiniest thunderhead in the distance. Reshiram’s enormous head snaked around him, unblinking, and they rumbled something to him. The truth, vast and white.

“I encountered a sage at the Relic Castle. Ryoku,” N managed. “He… let some things slip. About Ghetsis’s other children, besides myself and Anthea and Concordia. The _other tries_ ,” he spat, bitter in the way usually reserved for speaking of abuse of pokemon.

“The other tries…?” Hilda trailed off, struck by sudden foreboding. Remembered the names. Anthea, Beth, Concordia. Kyla, Leon, Mason. Nathan. 

A, B, C. K, L, M, _N_. 

“Fath- Ghetsis already spent so long stitching together the puppet Hero for his conquest. Why did I think he’d had _practice_?” N’s fingers dug into the grass.

“I think I know what you’re implying,” Hilda whispered. “But please tell me I’m wrong.”

“I am the youngest of fourteen. Anthea and Concordia would talk about the others, sometimes, since they could actually remember them before they died. Illness in the blood, we were told.” There was a wry edge of anger, there. “Ghetsis claimed their loss, and how it saddened him, as the reason my sisters and I were kept close at hand, and out of the dangers of the world. But now I find that… unlikely.” A shuddering breath as Reshiram leaned closer, pressuring him further. “Ryoku called them _failures_.”

Hilda hugged herself, as if feeling the chill off the Giant Chasm. “Do you know what happened to them?” _Please. Please let me be wrong._

“No,” N admitted. “It is why I wish to hunt down another sage. I… let Ryoku go before we could interrogate him further.”

And the not knowing was the worst part, wasn’t it? “Then we catch one again. Hopefully you can get some information out of our lead.”

The lead in question shook his feathers out in a flash of pokeball-light, remarkably relaxed. It had taken far longer than expected, but his turnaround wasn’t unwelcome. Hilda still didn’t dare interact with him alone, though. Even if Hydreigon did seem to realize that if he was violent towards her it meant there would be no gentle finger-preening in store for him. 

Hydreigon looked at N, almost surprised. Then tilted his head to Hilda, waiting. 

“Do you think he knows where to track down the sages?”

“I would imagine so. Ghetsis took him everywhere,” N replied, and relayed her question to the dragon. 

Quiet hisses, the hint of bared teeth. “He says that the- secondary heads, but I’m sure he’s referring to the sages- all knew of boltholes and places to burrow in order to remain hidden.” A pause, and more rustling feathers and clacking teeth. “The white-bark forest to the northwest of the town with… trains? Yes, trains… Anville Town, perhaps?”

“Has to be. Nimbasa is the only other big station in Unova, and there aren’t exactly sprawling forests around it, unless you count Lostlorn,” Hilda mused.

Yet more half-understood conversation, as N asked for clarification. A glint of epiphany, as N rummaged through his pockets for a well-worn town map. “Here, I think. White Forest,” he pointed to the woods just at the corner of the map. 

N folded up his map, and moved to get up, but Hilda reached for him to stay, a split-second request on her tongue. “Actually… real quick, can you ask him why he started following my directions? I need to know what I was doing right, so I can keep doing it, and if I was doing anything wrong.”

Hydreigon’s reply was chittering, and almost soft. “He follows your lead because you hold dominion over the territory and the other pokemon, but also feed and preen them like nestlings, instead of. Ah. Eating them,” N grimaced. “Hydreigon are… not precisely social, except between mates and mothers with their hatchlings. I apologize.”

Even feeling distinctly nauseous, Hilda waved him off. “Don’t apologize, it’s… okay, the cannibalism is gross, but so long as he knows I have zero intention to _eat my own pokemon_ , we’ll be fine.”

“I think he understands, yes.” N still eyed the pokemon in question warily. “We should fly to White Forest as soon as possible. If a sage is not there, we need to expand our search,” N said, carefully standing up, eyes still locked onto Hydreigon.

Hilda followed suit, casually leveraging herself up from Reshiram’s bulk. And stilled, a feeling of dread trickling down her spine like meltwater, because somehow she _forgot_ the greater threat of this hunt, the one that loomed above the remaining sages like a mountain behind trees.

“What will you do if we find Ghetsis alongside the other sages?”

“Ghetsis is my responsibility. If we encounter him, I’ll take care of it.” A careful glance at Ghetsis’s old pokemon. “There is little he could do to either Reshiram or Zekrom, without his most powerful team member.”

The insistence of handling Ghetsis on his own grated on Hilda, but perhaps it was for the better, given the mission of _arresting_ the sages.

Because after all that Hilda saw and heard and experienced, she knew she hated Ghetsis. She wanted him bleeding and broken at her feet. She wanted him _dead_ , scattered so far that his ghost would never know peace. 

And it _terrified_ her, down to her bones. King Reyes was a ruler in a time of civil war, who executed traitors by his own blade. Hilda Whitacre was a teenager from Nuvema who would tear down mountains for her friends.

But if Ghetsis was kneeling before her and if the king’s sword rested in her hands, she would be far more of Reyes than Hilda.

\--

The walk back to the lab was peaceful, if tense. N lingered behind as Hilda opened the door though. “I will just… wait outside.”

Hilda paused. “Uh, sure, but why?”

“I do not think your mother or the professor like me very much,” N said. Drily, he added. “It is an understandable sentiment, given our past interactions.”

Something constricted in Hilda’s chest, because she wanted to reassure him that her mother was fine with him, that he was welcome in Karla’s home unconditionally, but she couldn't. It wouldn't be the _truth_ , she thought bitterly. “Um. You can wait out here, I guess?” Hilda trailed off, awkwardly slipping inside the lab.

... Perhaps it was best she left N outside. Being the subject of scrutiny of both her mother and her mother’s girlfriend was intimidating.

“So,” Professor Juniper said, mildly scolding. “Your brother Nathan, was it?”

Hilda frantically searched for an adequate excuse… and found none, sagging in defeat. “Yeah, it wasn’t very believable, was it?” _Even if part of it was true, technically_.

“Maybe if I hadn’t met him before,” the Professor said, finding at least some humor in the situation. And then frowned, concerned. “Where is he, though?”

“Just waiting outside. I think he thought it’d be uh. Really awkward.” And he wasn’t wrong. N was sometimes hard to talk to, even with someone who actually _liked_ him.

Professor Juniper glanced at the door leading to the yard. “Assuming nothing too illegal is going on, I trust you to handle the situation. _However-_ ” she stressed, levelling Hilda with what wasn’t _quite_ a Mom Glare, but close enough to one to make Hilda stand up straighter and pay attention. “-I would appreciate you telling the truth next time. Plausible deniability will only get you so far.”

Hilda bristled at the admonishment for lying, because truth was her domain, but… there were a lot of ways to lie by telling the truth, she grudgingly admitted to herself. If anyone would know, it was the person who used to be King. “Thanks for not calling the cops, at least.”

“I kind of wanted to,” Professor Juniper admitted, glancing at Hilda’s mother. “But someone convinced me that wouldn’t be a good idea.”

“Oh, a terrible idea, definitely,” Hilda blurted, and then cringed internally when her mother’s and Juniper’s eyes widened. _That wasn’t meant to be a threat!_ “Sorry, sorry! Just, um, Zekrom, and your lab…” She trailed off, realizing that it kind of _had_ been a threat. One of property damage, at least. “Um…”

Looking a bit pained herself, Karla released her from her suffering. “Just... what matters is keeping yourself safe, is all.”

“Keeping myself- oh.” Hilda shivered, tense. “No, I- we don’t intend to fight like that again. The consequences are too dire.” And it _hurt_ , the way that it would to hold a knife to Cheren’s or Bianca’s or her mother’s throat. Even the faded-silk memories of Zhenya’s face across the raging battlefield felt like smoke strangling her heart. 

And it still hadn’t stopped Reyes from trying to take his brother’s life just as purposefully as Zhenya pursued Reyes’s head and the crown atop it. 

Hilda shoved her hands in her windbreaker’s pockets in lieu of fidgeting. “Look, it’s just… y’know how I told you about looking for the remaining sages? And you were okay with it so long as it wasn’t Ghetsis and I had Reshiram with me? N’s coming too.”

“On a hunt to _arrest his own subordinates_?” Karla’s tone was doubtful enough to chill the air. 

“It does sound kinda hard to believe when you put it like that,” Hilda winced. “But we both have questions, and the sages have answers.” She tried to fold up the _bad-wrong-upside-down_ memories of a room in the castle, decorated but scratched up like the inside of a prison cell. “Trust me when I say he has reasons not to be affiliated with Ghetsis and his followers anymore.”

“Still…” Juniper began, reluctantly ready to argue. So Hilda turned her attention to her mother.

“Mom, you know why we’d both be fine,” she asked, projecting sincerity. “Please, there are things we both need to know from these guys.”

Karla wavered. Returned her girlfriend’s ‘Is there something I need to know?’ look. Sighed. “Be back within the week. And I know you can, because you told me just how fast Reshiram flies.”

 _Victory!_ “Thanks Mom!” Hilda grinned, turning around to fish N out from the backyard. 

He was all too eager to skitter out of the lab, but not before gently depositing something round and green on the table next to Juniper. “Um, he wanted me to thank you on his behalf for the accommodations.” The Sewaddle looked at Juniper with a bland expression, reaching one chitinous arm to grasp at her lab coat. “And I should apologize for my, ah, conduct at Chargestone, and- ack!” N sputtered, tugged to the door by Hilda.

“C’mon dude, let’s go before my mom changes her mind!” Hilda whisper-hissed, because that was still a _definite_ possibility.

The door closed on Karla hiding her face in her hands in embarrassment, and Professor Juniper staring at the door, wondering what storm just blew through her lab.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Bay of Fire and Bay of Lightning are the two jagged bays leading the sea into Unova. They were made after the two heroes’ deaths, in Reshiram and Zekrom’s grief and rage. And also speaking of geography, White Forest still exists despite this being Black version- it’s just wayyyyy up northeast from Anville. Remote, for the most part
> 
> And ah, yes, N dropping heavy conversational bombs seemingly out of nowhere. Not unusual for him, but it still catches Hilda off guard. Honestly, I think he has a lot of lingering bitterness for ‘allowing’ himself to be so thoroughly manipulated for Ghetsis’s goals- knowing the extent of it, most people wouldn’t blame him for how he was raised, I would hope (hell, breaking out of a cult-raised mindset? Even with help from other people and their perspectives, it’s hard, and it takes _balls_ ), but I think he’d be likely to blame himself, just a little. Lots of people and pokemon got hurt for this, after all. Not saying he’s right to blame himself for _everything_ , obviously, but y’know. Yeah. 
> 
> And hey, you see I wasn’t kidding about only taking BW canon from the cart and nothing else, right? I remember ages and _ages_ ago (it’s been ten years at _least_ ) I saw someone pose the question ‘Man, I wonder what happened to A-M?’ and even though I’m usually not one to go with the darker theories, well. I remembered it after so long, so. It’s in here. Is it canon? Absolutely not. Did we know much of _any_ canon for the whole Harmonia family bullshit in 2011? Also no. 
> 
> Now about Hydreigon’s remarks, and N’s subsequent apologies- I definitely am leaning more towards pokemon as frighteningly intelligent animals, but they definitely are _not_ human. They don’t interact with or treat each other the same way humans do each other, and it would vary vastly between various pokemon species- again, like irl animals. The thing with Hydreigon seeing cannibalism as a viable thing between others? Not uncommon- lots of animals are documented to do this, from things like tiger salamanders and praying mantises to more intelligent species like chimps. N’s apology is more in the vein of “I am very sorry because I know humans are different and this can be distressing to people to hear”. He’s sheltered in a lot of ways, but the natural world of pokemon in the wild would _not_ be one of them, I think.
> 
> (This isn’t an attempt to be obnoxiously gritty I promise- Hydreigon is just a very extreme example. Xenopsychology is just one of my oldest SEs and it shows, and it’s definitely applicable to pokemon)
> 
> Also, there’s art! My friend Iturbide (same UN here) made it! [link](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/546161303220387840/789602209914421278/IMG_0469.png)  
> 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hilda and N: thanks for the inherited trauma your majesties but we don’t have time to unpack all that.
> 
> I hardcore waffled on whether to include the slightly darker topics addressed in this one, but, well. I did say this was the fic 12-year-old me wanted to write but couldn’t. And I’m staying true to that- every 12 year old just happens to have a bit of edgelord in ‘em and I was definitely not an exception. (Not to mention I find cult leaders some of the most despicable types of people on Earth, and Ghetsis is shown repeatedly to go so far beyond the line of comically evil that it loops back around into actually being a bit scary again. Brr). Most of it is Ghetsis’s fault, like most things are. He’s not beyond killing children in canon, and really? He’s not meant to be a deep or understandable character- he’s meant to be both an obstacle and a contrast to the _other_ antagonist. That’s never been his narrative purpose, both in the games or in this fic.
> 
> if you see any spelling/grammar errors let me know, I’ll get them fixed!

N still felt some shame, leaving the Professor and Mrs. Whitacre so abruptly; mid-apology, as fumbling as the attempt had been. Hilda assured him there would be other opportunities after he had time to think on his words.

“ _And,_ ” Hilda had said, “ _You could not_ pay _me to be in the same room as my mom and her girlfriend for an emotional conversation._ Blech _!_ ” she’d declared, sticking out her tongue in disgust of such a fate. 

Which was well enough, N supposed- he admittedly needed the time to think about how to address Hilda’s mother, in addition to the professor. That she’d even allowed him into her home surprised him- among pokemon, even the most forgiving Audino doe would never let a known threat into her burrow.

Mrs. Whitacre clearly still didn’t trust him- but that was okay. N was having a hard time trusting his own judgement, himself. 

He could trust his judgement enough to know he ought to make amends verbally as well as in action. Flying gave him the time to do so; paradoxically peaceful, thousands of feet in the air and soaring at breakneck speeds, flying next to Reshiram- an oddity, given the last time Reshiram and Zekrom flew the same skies. His nephew, having allied with Reshiram for the promise of vengeance, standing on the battlefield next to Reshiram- beside them, not astride them. Because Reshiram had _loved_ his brother, enough to carve their grief into the continent, enough to break themself on Zekrom’s storm-wreathed claws, white-hot fangs snapping closed around him-

N shook himself, flexing his hands and grounding himself in the too-tight feeling of healed burns. _Put it away. Zhenya is dead and gone- as he should be_. 

His time of contemplation, for better or worse, soon came to an end as White Forest sprawled beneath the dragons’ wings. As they landed, the towering canopy was more than enough to hide the bulk of Reshiram and Zekrom, even as the dragons straightened after their humans dismounted. 

The moment his shoes hit the ground, every hair on the back of N’s neck went straight up. Like there was something huge and invisible holding its breath, the wind itself ceasing to blow.

And then the feeling was gone, evaporated like frost in morning. Whatever the odd feeling was, Hilda seemed unaffected by it, instead marching ahead and releasing Hydreigon. N took the initiative, bringing Hydreigon’s attention to him with a soft hiss. “Is this the place where the Plasma base is? Where high-ranking members might hide?” A shallow hand-gesture to indicate he meant the ‘secondary heads’ Hydreigon used to refer to the sages, and a subtle head-tilt of deference to show he spoke on behalf of Hydreigon’s trainer.

 _“White-bark forest, yes. Blood-cowards hiding in burrows.”_ A flash of serrated fangs, delighted and dangerous. _“Hunt-leader flush them out, trap them, ambush from above, yes?”_

“Ah, yes,” N replied hesitantly, knowing this particular pokemon’s violent disposition. “We must track them first, if one is present.”

Hydreigon’s nose twitched, scenting the air. _“Yes, human-scent, not-new but not-old.”_ A flicker of his tongue. _“Smells like fear. Strong fear, hunted fear!”_ Now properly worked up, Hydreigon shot off into the air, snarling.

“Shit!” Hilda swore, pelting after her eager pokemon, leaving N and the dragons to catch up; Reshiram and Zekrom took to the skies, blasting past the corona of branches and leaving N to pursue her on foot. It didn’t take him long to see what Hilda and Hydreigon were chasing, though, as a flash of brown robes flickered past white tree-bark. 

It seemed someone had witnessed Zekrom and Reshiram’s arrival, and gotten too curious for their own good. 

Fumbling and nearly dropping the ball, Hilda recalled Hydreigon before he caught up to the fleeing sage. Which was for the better, knowing the fate that surely awaited the Plasma remnant the moment the pokemon reached him.

Their chase ended as the sage suddenly halted, whirling himself around to prostrate himself in a bow so low his hair brushed the dirt. He only cowered further as the earth shook beneath their feet, the legendary dragons kicking up a storm of leaves and dirt as they landed behind their humans.

“Majesties,” he pleaded, voice quivering.

Hilda scowled mightily even as her dragon churred, pleased. “ _This one shows proper deference,_ ” Reshiram said, angling their head to look upon the sage as if he was a particularly fascinating insect. “ _He sees the truth of what my king is._ ”

“ _And does your beloved friend not chafe under the title of king?_ ” Zekrom countered.

Reshiram sniffed derisively, making the sage flinch. “ _Hilda is my ward, and my beloved companion, and my king. That is what matters._ ”

Unbeknownst of the conversation above her, Hilda snapped. “Unova hasn’t been a monarchy in a thousand years, dumbass.”

Far more gently, because this man tutored him in his youth even as he lied to him, N added “The title was empty even as I was crowned. Rise, Sage Giallo.”

Hesitantly the man sat up, but did not get to his feet. “Perhaps it was a hollow gesture as you were coronated at the castle, but the Black Dragon…” Giallo trailed off, unable to tear his eyes from the creature in question. “You were legitimized the moment Zekrom chose you.”

“Then consider me abdicated,” N said firmly. “Now get up, and answer my questions. _Truthfully_ ,” he emphasized, gaze flicking to Reshiram for a brief moment. 

Giallo caught his glance aside, and gulped. “I thank Your Majesties for your mercy,” he murmured, still kneeling with his legs beneath him. 

_“Wise,”_ Reshiram commented. And then lifted their lips in the barest hint of a snarl. _“But not wise enough. There are vile truths in his heart, just as there are wise truths. His guilt betrays his knowledge, little hero-king.”_

“The others,” N blurted, the searing need to _know_ forcing his words before his thoughts. “I know Ghetsis had other children besides myself and my half-sisters. What happened to them?” 

Giallo swallowed drily, tilting forward as if fighting obeisance towards a stronger power. “I am so sorry, my lord. The depths of-”

“I do not care how you _feel_ ,” N growled, voice snapping like sparks. _Coward!_ “I care what you know. _What happened to my brothers and sisters?_ ”

“I don’t know!” Giallo trembled. “It was- Rood and Ghetsis himself were responsible for the first attempts!” The temperature rose, swiftly enough that N knew it was Reshiram exerting their influence. “Whoever was on-site at the moment- Rood told me he placed them in the state system, but where… I don’t know!” Almost frantic from the combined pressure of the dragons, Giallo bowed once more. “It is your right to take vendetta for their abandonment, just please make it merciful…”

 _Take vendetta?_ N’s heart nearly stuttered to a stop in his chest. “I don’t intend to _kill you!_ ” he snapped, appalled at the notion. 

_“You don’t? A shame,”_ Zekrom remarked lightly, only half-joking. N held his tongue for now, though surely they would discuss this later. 

“Please, then, what is your decision, my lord?” Giallo continued.

Funny, how Giallo only truly appealed to N’s supposed authority after he had been dethroned. “I sentence you to live. Live with your actions, and atone for them.” _Like I am_.

True to their silent agreement, Hilda had let N handle this on his own thus far, but took her cue to step in. Waggling the flex-cuffs in front of the sage’s face, she commanded. “C’mon your sageliness, you’re coming with me. One of Looker’s goons will be _real_ eager to see your mug.”

\--

Miles outside the forest, at Anville town, Hydreigon and Vanilluxe beside him, N observed from a distance as Hilda cheerily called someone on her Xtranciever- likely that ‘Looker’ agent, Sage Giallo pale as an execution warrant beside her. Two local officers stood on either side of the cuffed sage.

Giallo looked far too relieved to be manhandled away by police, but N supposed the man truly had been expecting to die upon the dragons’ descent. 

“So, I suppose this means we look for Rood and Ghetsis next?” Hilda said, striding beside him as they walked to somewhere more hidden to take off on Reshiram and Zekrom. 

“Didn’t you promise your mother you wouldn’t go after Ghetsis?” N said pointedly, ignoring her light scowl at being caught out. “And besides, I… already know what Ghetsis intended with them. What he almost did.” And it was fortunate, in a way, that the shock was great enough to numb him. Too numb to hurt, yet, like the shock of a missing limb. 

“Oh?” Hilda questioned, light and yet serious, and N couldn’t verbalize it, he _couldn't_ , or else it would bleed out and crash around him like the castle walls did. 

Sick to his stomach, N nodded towards Hydreigon, who looked distinctly unbothered- he was the one who told N, after all- and repeated what the pokemon had told him.

 _“They were old enough to remember the nest,”_ Hydreigon had recalled. _“The toppled hunt-leader is wasteful. He wanted his own nestlings dead even when there was plenty of territory and food for them.”_ The dragon had tilted his head, remembering what had to be a distant memory. _“The one with the long beard and the Swoobat was sneaky. Cunning, yes. Slipped them out of the territory and claimed them dead.”_

Hilda whipped her head between Ghetsis’s ex-pokemon, who had surely seen the most of his true nature, and her brother in a past life. Shoulders shaking, she returned Hydreigon to his ball and sat down heavily in the dirt, reminding N so much of Reyes after the previous Unovan King’s death that he was sitting beside her before his mind had a chance to catch up. 

“He tried to kill your siblings.” Hilda turned watering eyes to N. “He tried to kill me, in the throne room. He tried to kill _you_.”

Stone Edges whizzing close enough to clip the brim of N’s hat as he stretched his power across the battlefield to heal Hilda’s pokemon. Flamethrowers parting before the Protect of Hilda’s Gigalith like an ocean around a boat’s keel. Earthquake opening deliberate cracks beneath their feet. “He did,” N breathed. 

He nearly jumped out of his skin when a hand closed around his wrist- stone-callused and strong enough to feel his bones creak under its grip, but grounding. For both of them. “I hate him,” Hilda whispered, voice trembling just as much as her grip on his wrist.

A shuddering breath. “I do too.” N hated Ghetsis. Just as he loved him, and feared him, and missed the man he’d _thought_ his father was. 

Salt behind his eyes and returning the death grip on his hand with one of his own, N mourned what should have been.

\--

This time, when the knock on her door came, Karla was expecting it. 

On the other side of the threshold, Hilda looked… tired, in a way she hadn’t since her time in the hospital. Wordlessly, she trudged into the house and kicked off her shoes, her green-haired shadow not far behind. 

“Did… you find what you were looking for?” Karla asked tentatively. 

The two teens exchanged a _look_ \- a wordless communication, in a silent gray language Karla could never hope to understand. “Yeah, for now, we just needed a break before heading out again,” Hilda said, just a bit too smoothly to be the complete truth.

“How long will you be staying this time?” Karla called as Hilda trudged to the stairs, travel-bag still slung over her shoulder. This part, at least, was routine- Hilda visited fairly often, if not for long, during the course of her journey. It was familiar to Karla, her daughter’s odd tagalong notwithstanding. 

“Just a day!” Hilda tossed back and she and N disappeared up the stairs.

Still, it couldn’t hurt to be safe. She called over Stoutland. “Guard Hilda,” Karla ordered, trusting the old dog the same way she had when Hilda was a far younger child. He whuffled at her before they split at the top of the stairs- Stoutland to her daughter, and Karla to her own room to sleep.

After tucking herself beneath the covers, lamplight bathing the room in warm tones, Karla pulled up her texting app.

[KW] Hilda and N are back.

[AJ] Have they found what they were looking for?

[KW] No idea. They just got back.

And then.

[KW] We might have to continue our conversation later. I know it was a lot.

Ellipses flickered on the screen, and Karla could easily imagine her partner deliberating over her texts as if they were a thesis.

[AJ] I think ‘a lot’ is a huge understatement.

[AJ] But at least I kind of understand why they seemed to trust each other.

[AJ] Thanks for letting me know. He hasn’t caused any trouble?

[KW] Not a peep. Hopefully it stays that way.

 _Creak_.

Karla glanced up from her screen, and put it away as Hilda trudged into her room, flopping facefirst onto the foot of Karla’s bed. Stoutland ambled in after her, sniffing at her face before nosing his way under Karla’s hand for scritches.

Karla frowned. “Where is…?” she trailed off. Startled, as the sounds of the shower turned to full blast seeped into the house.

“He’s been off the grid for a while,” Hilda answered Karla’s silent question. Added, with a bit of a whine. “Even his pokemon told him he stank.”

Karla wrinkled her nose, recalling that N would probably take up her couch again. “Well, I’m glad you’re home safe,” she said, warmth suffusing her voice. For all that the Plasma and legends and Hero-Kings business terrified her out of her wits, after it was all over, it was a blessing to have her daughter home again. 

Hilda stilled, and though her face was still hidden from Karla in the comforter, her words were clear and her tone serious. “... Thank you,” Hilda said, so low it was almost a whisper. 

Blankets fell away as Karla sat up abruptly, reaching out in worry, because something in Hilda’s voice… “What’s wrong, honey?”

“I’m just… I’m glad you’re my mom.” Hands fisted tightly into the comforter, trembling with the force of it. “I’m really, _really_ lucky…” Hilda sat up, looking far too old for her fifteen years.

But not too old to be held by her mother. Hands carefully stroking her daughter’s back, Karla held her tight in a hug. “Is it the… is it the kings?”

A silent shake of the head in the crook of Karla’s shoulder. “Reyes and Zhenya’s parents were- I don’t remember them much. They were distant.” A shuddering breath. “Ghetsis was _not_.”

And then the words were spilling from her mouth like a flooded river, tears dampening Karla’s shirt and a trembling grip making her spine creak. “He’s- I _hate_ him, mom.”

Oh. It wasn’t _just_ sorrow. It was rage, white and shaking like an impending eruption. “He- he fucked up his kids so _bad_ , and then he tried to kill N, and me, and, and-” A gulp. “I want to kill him and it scares me because it was so _easy_ as Reyes.”

Karla simply held her tighter, speechless. Because while she certainly wanted to tear Ghetsis apart for trying to murder her daughter, it was never something she wanted Hilda to be burdened with. 

There was little more outraging than things a mother could not protect her child from. Especially when one of those things was both three-thousand years dead and yet also curled in her arms.

\--

Karla woke when the sky was still gray, sun hiding beneath the trees. She allowed herself a moment of empty thoughts and empty motivation before sighing, getting out of bed, and pulling on her robe. She never did quite feel like a person until she’d had coffee. 

Trudging down the hallway, she stopped when light flashed out of the corner of her eye- light from the TV, hitting the wall of the stairwell, flickering every few seconds. 

She slowly crept down the stairs, feet muffled by the carpet. Stepped quietly into the living room.

A silent news segment reeled across the screen, bathing the dark room in a harsh, pale blaze. Hilda was slumped on the couch, feet sticking out from the blanket, head pillowed on the couch arm as if she’d fallen asleep sitting up. Legs crossed and face set into hard lines by the screen, N sat on the chair that cornered the couch, expression half-hidden by loose hair. 

The news, Karla noted, showed the construction crews hard at work cleaning up the League Castle, with a minimized image of the League immediately post-Plasma-battle for comparison. 

“Having some regrets?” she said, knowing she was probably poking a sore spot.

“Always,” came the immediate reply.

“... Oh,” Karla said, feeling a little word-lost. The screen flickered to a lineup of portraits, notably missing one of the sages- that had to be the one they caught. At the top, an old Trainer Card photo looked stubbornly behind the camera, stone-eyed and paler than its living reflection sitting on the chair. 

Sighing, she reached behind the TV screen to turn it off. “Wallowing won’t do you any good,” Karla instructed, making her way towards the kitchen. “My daughter is putting a lot of effort into getting you exonerated. Don’t waste it.” Blunt command given, Karla set about flicking on the kitchen lights and starting up the coffee pot. Neither of the teens in the living room moved.

Usually she turned on the news in the morning- even if she was only half-listening, it helped Karla wake up. 

… Though on second thought, given present company, it was probably best not to.

Humming to herself lowly, Karla set about making breakfast- it was the least she could do before Hilda inevitably blasted out again to fly off and terrorize the trainers who wanted to fight her.

Bacon already sizzling in the pan, Karla hesitated, before adding a few more eggs to the scrambled mix. It wouldn’t be right, not to feed the guest in her house. 

(She also wasn’t blind to how haggard he looked, worn and thin like an old blanket; and even if she didn’t trust N fully, anyone who wouldn’t feel the urge to feed the homeless teenager visiting their house would be someone _missing_ something, in Karla’s opinion.)

 _Thud!_ Came the sound of somebody dropping off the couch and onto the floor.

“Good morning, Hilda,” Karla pitched her voice to carry. “You’re up in time for breakfast to still be hot.”

Wordless mumbling preceded Hilda’s entrance into the kitchen, blanket draped over her shoulders like a cape and eyes half-squinting in the yellow light. 

“Hilda,” Karla reprimanded gently, dishing out the food onto plates. “How late were you up?”

Her far-too-awake friend answered for her. “Until around one.”

“Snitch,” Hilda grumped, slumping into a seat at the kitchen table. 

Karla slid the plate of breakfast under her daughter’s nose before she could face-plant into the wood. N, looking almost prim, sat gingerly in the seat beside Hilda, back straight and eyes alight in a way that told Karla he knew _exactly_ what he was doing, ratting her out. 

Karla sighed and slid him a plate and fork anyways, ignoring his look of blatant surprise. “Hilda, you have got to stop staying up late like that. I swear, half of your badge journey was at night…”

“So what if it was?” Hilda protested around a mouthful of eggs, before swallowing at Karla’s look. “It’s nice and quiet at night.”

Karla sat down with her own food, admitting defeat. Hilda had always been a night-owl, anyways. “And I was fine with it, so long as you were being safe. As I hope you are also doing now.”

A plaintive groan. “Aw, mom, I’m almost Champion-level, and none of these guys even have pokemon. I’ll be _fine_.”

“Still. You should come home to rest when you want to- not just when you _need_ to. And that goes for you too, young man.” Karla jabbed her fork at N’s direction; his startled blink flicked from the utensil to her face. “I mean it. I don’t exactly get out much, so if you need a place to crash, just knock.”

She’d made this same offer to Bianca, a couple years ago. The circumstances were a little different, but the intent was similar. 

N let out a quiet breath. “Thank you,” he said, beginning to bow before realizing he was, indeed, seated; instead he stopped short of leaning awkwardly above the table, loose hair almost dragging into his food. 

He shifted back, looking fatally embarrassed- which was not helped by Hilda’s snickering. “Still growing out of thousand-year-old-habits?”

“You be quiet,” N said mutinously, in what he probably thought was _not_ a sulk.

As Hilda reached over to poke her friend in the gut for his impertinence, Karla interjected. “Hilda, no roughhousing at the table.”

Shamefaced, Hilda retreated.

Even if their poking and prodding was obviously flippant, playful as a spring breeze, it still sent ice creeping down Karla’s spine, remembering what a _serious_ fight looked like. The same way a spring breeze could reflect the hurricanes that blew through the coast, so too was their friendly play-fights a reminder of a battle that tore scars into the League Mountain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am extremely sorry for all the essay length a/ns lmao.
> 
> N’s still not sure how to handle Karla, for all that she’s equally unsure how to handle him. There are a lot of things he feels he needs to make amends for- people who got hurt, or people he lashed out at, hindsight is 20/20 and all that- which is awkward enough on his own, and definitely not something he was given a lot of practice doing. But he didn’t actually interact with her at all, for all that the whole tangle of kings and past lives and legendary pokemon affected her. (Also, bearing in mind the whole isolation except from a few people and lots of abused pokemon thing, he’d probably wonder ‘why isn’t she on the offense right now?’. All pokemon lines are different, but a common factor is that if one of their hatchlings gets hurt, mom isn’t going to show mercy. Gotta love when intellectually you know people won’t behave in one way but your hindbrain is still insisting they Will, Actually). He’s a lot more unsure than we see him in bw2 (congrats on your character development king), but the blow to his strong personality is ultimately temporary. He’s just coming right off of having his worldview and everything about his life sandblasted to nothingness and lies. 
> 
> For Karla’s part she’s _mostly_ falling back on the routine ‘Oh Hilda brought one of her strange friends over again’. Or at least trying to.
> 
> White Forest acting as an off brand way-less-inhabited-Pokespe-Viridian-Forest? Pray it isn’t so! Naw but it does kinda explain the talking to pokemon stuff in conjunction with the healing (not that I don’t appreciate N casting a full-party cure before fighting Ghetsis, esp given consecutive battles in nuzlockes _suck_ )
> 
> Speaking of, most members of Hilda’s team were all unexpected MVPs on the various nuzruns I’ve done. I took a Gigalith all though the entire game, and Stunfisk was actually really useful. Little motherfucker took out Ghetsis’s Hydreigon, can you believe it?


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is mostly some loose ends tied up, and scenes that are more slices of postgame journey than overarching plot. Like a lot of this fic is, really- it’s more of a loosely-tied together series of old ideas and scenarios tied tenuously together by a vague timeline. It’s not like… something meant to have a tight plot or solid character arcs like Soul-Stricken- this was a fic I went into purely for self-indulgent Fun rather than serious practice. Still. I hope folks enjoyed it! Which I would hope so, if you’re still around for chapter 5. Especially because I’ve been extremely nervous about posting this the entire time- I don’t interact with pokefandom like…. Ever. I have no idea what the current trends or environments are. But I haven’t gotten any hatemail yet so I like to think I’m doing a-okay!
> 
> Anyways. BW2 said ‘and they never talked to each other again, not even over the phone’ re: Cheren/Bianca/Hilda. Lol fuck that they have a hoppin’ group chat and they call each other all the time. Hilda sends a million contextless pictures of her travels, N still texts like he’s writing a snail-mail letter, and Bianca uses enough emoticons to be its own language. Cheren’s gym internship keeps him busy but he tends to be up at weird hours with Hilda. None of this is relevant to the fic I just think it’s fun to think about 
> 
> if you see any spelling/grammar errors let me know, I’ll get them fixed!

Sea breeze threatening to whip the towel off her head, Hilda sat atop her Jellicent’s head, floating peacefully on the far end of Undella Bay as she let the sun dry her out from her recent diving exploration. She’d taken a ton of pictures, alongside a few other things, but Undella as a whole was a resounding failure in the hunt for Sage Rood. 

Three weeks and four arrested sages later, Hilda was beginning to reach the end of her patience. All of them had pointed to Rood for answers, but actually _finding_ the man had been a resounding failure.

Dragging the sea-smelling towel off her head with a frustrated huff, she brought up his number on her Xtranceiver. Maybe N had picked up a trail, after they split up.

N’s face appeared on the screen, the backdrop of storm-black informing Hilda that he was with Zekrom. Any intimidating effect was also ruined by the Pidove using his head as a perch. “Any luck finding Sage Rood?”

“Ugh, no, Undella Bay was a bust, and we’re starting to run out of places to check,” she grumbled. Upon their split to cover more ground, N realized that the previous stages had been found in areas either connected to Team Plasma, or, more often, to the remains of Ancient Unova. Undella Town had held a very intrigued foreign Champion and a technically-off-limits ruin, but not much else.

Speaking of the Abyssal Ruins... Hilda rummaged around her bag, and brandished the resulting artifact at the Xtranciever camera. “Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you. Look what I found!” 

N startled so hard the Pidove perched on his head fluttered away, disturbed. “Is that the- it’s a crown, _what-_ ” He growled- a low, reprimanding thing that sounded far too much like a pokemon. “Where did you _get that_?”

“I fished it out of the ruins of the Harmonia family tomb off the coast of Undella.” She propped it atop her head, jaunty and casual, and the rust-and-barnacle-encrusted crown slid forward dangerously as she moved. “Whaddya say? D’ya think the last king of united Ancient Unova is gonna smite me from beyond her grave for disrespect?”

“...Depends on if you count it as grave-robbing, since she was our mother in a past life.” A pause, as he visibly calmed himself. “And the authorities would definitely consider it grave-robbing if they caught you with that.”

“I should’ve inherited it anyways,” she countered playfully, chin tilted up imperiously. The image was ruined as the crown slid off her head and she had to scramble to catch it.

“Reyes might’ve been older,” N couldn’t help but point out. “But you do realize that’s _actually_ my ancestor’s tomb, right?”

“By the legends, that’s weird,” Hilda muttered. “I always forget you’re actually blood-descended from Zhenya’s line.”

Judgemental silence. Hilda sighed, carefully setting the crown in her lap. She’d been so caught up in seeing the past preserved before her eyes- the pressurized, twisting maze to keep out all but the knowledgeable, the tale of the Gray Ancestor- the first Dragon-King Harmonia- carved into the walls, the traditional blessings for the dead spiralling around the items of importance to the one buried there- that she’d… forgotten. “Sorry,” she finally said, feeling shamed. “I wasn’t… thinking in the present. I’ll take it back.”

“Please do.” N flipped open the now-thoroughly-marked map, slightly singed at the edges. “Is there an area we _haven’t_ checked?”

Hilda yanked out her own Town Map, puzzling over the contents. “Hmm. That’s all the Ancient Unovan remains crossed out. You said Plasma had some old bases around Virbank and Route 18?” 

“Virbank is closer to me, and I’m less likely to be recognized” N agreed. “So that leaves you with Route 18. Be careful though- they might still be inhabited.”

“Ugh, don’t go parroting Mom’s words back at me.” Hilda rolled her eyes. “I should be saying that to _you_ , dude.” She stood, Jellicent obligingly stilling so she could keep her balance. Stretched. Released Hydreigon in a flash of light, hauling herself onto his back before returning Jellicent. “See you on the other side, Nat!” She called as a parting, shouting over the sound of six long wings buffeting the air. 

Route 18 was a long flight away, but she would try and avoid letting Reshiram be spotted in the distant air, this time. No need to let her target possibly know she was in the area.

\--

Now on Reshiram’s back, confident there were fewer eyes on the sky in the middle of an uninhabited sea, Hilda scanned the island chains beneath her, trusting Reshiram to let her know if they spotted anything. 

They slowed in their impossibly fast flight, instead tilting one massive wing and allowing themself to spiral above a particular island. Hilda gripped pale feathers tighter as Reshiram dipped their nose to shrug lower into the sky, unwavering and pointed at a brown speck at the ocean cliffside. 

_Gotcha, old man._

Even as Reshiram’s landing buffeted him and blew his robes, the sage did not face her, instead remaining at his perch, gazing out to the ocean. “Greetings, Hero of Truth,” he pitched his voice to carry, eyes unmoving from some fixed point on the horizon.

“That’s a fairly calm reaction compared to the rest of your buddies,” Hilda remarked. 

“Were this the ancient times, I would bow and address you as Queen, with Reshiram at your back.” Finally, he turned to face her. “But longing for a past I was not born for has gotten me nowhere.”

Hilda snorted. “And you couldn’t figure that out before you were playacting the first Conquest of Unova?” And if he really _knew_ what he was talking about, he’d be aware that the title of Queen was incorrect anyways- ‘King’ was a gender-neutral title in ancient Unovan. The stuffy old translators had gotten it all wrong, of course. 

“I thought the results outweighed my own doubts and beliefs. My own sins. How wrong I was…” Turning, he faced her, wrists presented. “If you seek justice, then we are in agreement- I seek atonement, as it happens.”

“If you seek atonement, then you aren’t going to find it sitting in a cell,” Hilda countered. “But you can _start_ by answering a few questions.”

“As if I could possibly deny your request, when The Truth stands above us,” the sage remarked as he glanced up at the dragon in question, wryly finding at least _some_ humor in the situation.

“Good, because I don’t particularly care about your motivations. I care about what you _know_ ,” Hilda said, frustration evident in her tone. Of course the last sage before Ghetsis himself she found would be the one she _actually_ needed to interrogate. “You were responsible for some of Ghetsis’s other children. You are _going_ to tell me what happened to them.”

No amount of projected serenity could hide the naked shock on Rood’s face. “I- when did you-”

“We have a support group for this Heroes nonsense, didn’t you know? Meets once a week,” Hilda snarked, impatiently pushing past his sputtering. She drew herself up, head tilted in a way that she knew made her seem taller than she really was. “ _Explain_ , Sage Rood.”

“I…” Rood looked down at his empty hands. “The children… we didn’t often know, for a while, if they had the power.” 

On a silent signal from Hilda, Reshiram arced their head down, pressing their influence down on Rood like smothering smoke. “White Forest, it- Ghetsis found old tales from descendants of witnesses, and family records, despite it being almost unpopulated.” The words ripped from Rood’s mouth like a wind tearing at tree branches. “Some manner of psychic hotspot, with locals born in decade-long increments who could speak to all species of pokemon as if it were their own language, and healed their injuries without touching them.”

 _Bingo_ , Hilda thought, and watched as Rood’s face journeyed from looking as if he’d swallowed a bug to something more resigned, painted with faint curiosity. “So it is true that the White Dragon can exert power over their domain of Truth… fascinating.” He looked up at the legendary pokemon, somehow showing deference and straightening his spine at once.

“Hey, back on topic.” Hilda snapped her fingers at him, because she was on a _mission_. “You were the one in charge of some of the kids who _didn’t_ inherit weird forest crap. Tell me.”

“I… do not know,” Rood admitted. “Truly. I gave them to the system, so even if they were not adopted, they would have aged out by now.”

Hilda exhaled slowly, steadying her temper. It was because of him that many of N’s siblings were not met with far shorter and more unpleasant fates. “Their names, at least. Surely you left them with _that_.”

“Beth, Dorothea, Elise, Finn, Gabriel, Heidi, Isolde, Johanna, Katerina, Leon, and Matthias. No last names given, all left with the Icirrus system- for its high adoption rate,” Rood rattled off, gaze serious. “I remember them all, of course, though I know not where they are now.”

Deadly as the glint of sunlight off a drawn blade and with all the authority of a king passing judgement, Hilda pushed him further. “Your regret rings true. So here is what you will do, during your imprisonment- you are _going_ to speak on behalf of N’s innocence in court, even if it damns you and your fellows.” She managed to resist pinching the bridge of her nose, barely. Rood’s speech pattern was just archaic enough to bring Reyes’s memories to the surface, affecting her manner of speaking in turn. And giving her a _headache_.

“Look, just-” Hilda sketched her confusion in the air, gestures nonsensical and confused as she felt. “Why did you disobey orders then, and not any other times?”

Rood shook his head, appalled. “Young lady, I sacrificed much for Plasma’s cause, but _infanticide_ is where I draw the line!”

“Oh, so you were slightly less despicable than Ghetsis? _Cry me a river!_ ” Hilda shot back, sudden fury welling in her blood like lava. “‘Sacrificed much’? Don’t make me _laugh_! So you’re above killing children, but not none of the other shit Plasma pulled?” 

Rood shuffled back, visibly intimidated, for every step Hilda took toward him, until his heels were near the cliffside and her finger was jabbed at his chest. “... I desired a world without war. If I had to sacrifice my own morality, then I thought ‘so be it’.” A slow exhale, arms slack against his side. “Many of us truly did believe in Lord N, you must understand. A king to walk the balance between human and pokemon, black and white, truth and ideals… the thought was captivating.”

“It was _arrogant_ is what it was,” Hilda huffed, pulling away to stomp back to Reshiram. “It’s not _your_ ‘sacrifice’ if other people pay the price for it.” Wind and silence and the crash of waves against the shore. “So you want atonement for your actions? Start _doing_ something about it.”

“That is the intent, yes. The solitude here… it has done much for me, meditating on my ideals.”

“Good,” Hilda said with finality. “You seem cooperative, so you get one choice. I can haul your butt to the nearest station on Reshiram, or-” She tossed a particular Ultra Ball up and down in her hand. “We can take Hydreigon.”

Hilda couldn’t help the grin that spread on her face when Rood visibly started sweating. Petty, yes, but a far more harmless bite than what she could have done. 

“... The one that belonged to Ghetsis?” He swallowed. “... Reshiram, then. Please.”

“Smart choice,” Hilda remarked.

\--

In the wintry seaside morning, Hilda chafed at her arms, perched on the dock rails in Nuvema as her team of champion-hopefuls loitered. Gigalith, far too heavy now to step on the wooden planks without crashing through them. Heatmor, sniffing at Bianca’s knees curiously and begging for the leftovers of her snack. Jellicent and Stunfisk were somewhere beneath the docks, and Volcarona flared his wings at passerby, eagerly looking for a fight. Hydreigon was in his ball, of course- ideally she wouldn’t have to resort to using him against Alder, but high-level battles were paradoxically safer to take the monstrous dragon to. She still would rather avoid it, though- though she established a far healthier bond with him, he still had issues seeing humans and pokemon as equal targets.

She and her two best friends had originally met up to talk strategy, but they never got very far. She’d missed them too much to only talk ‘business’ with them.

Hilda swung backwards, keeping her knees hooked on the rails and suspending herself upside-down above the ocean. “So, how long d’you suppose I’ll keep my title before Cheren blasts in and tries to beat me?” Hilda asked lightly.

Bianca giggled, but Cheren couldn’t hide his offended snort. “Oh, please, I’d give you at least a week to enjoy your Championship, because I’m feeling nice. If it were anyone else, I’d give them an hour.”

“Ah! So generous!” Hilda swooned, waving her arms grandiosely towards the sky. “However shall I repay you?”

“By not wrecking the place before I can take over.”

“Smug! So horribly smug! What a way to treat your future champion, Cheren!” Hilda lamented, grinning as Bianca broke out into full laughter. 

Cheren pinned her with a look. “And how long is this future champion going to take before she challenges Alder?”

“Sheesh, back to business, huh?” Hilda grumbled, swinging herself back up to sit on the railing properly. “I had to do some swapping around and training- you _know_ I wouldn’t feel comfortable leading with Hydreigon for that fight- but I’m aiming for the League next week. They just barely started accepting challengers after cleaning up the mess from Plasma Castle.” She frowned, serious. “I’m confident I can beat Alder, I’m just not looking forward to the- ugh, the _legal business._ ”

“Are you sure that’s even going to work? The Champion has a lot of pull, but, um, well. N _did_ get a lot of people hurt…” Bianca trailed off.

“Eh, nobody died, so it should be water under the bridge.”

Bianca looked troubled, for a moment. “Do you really think that?”

Uncharacteristically serious, Hilda still did her best to reassure her friend. “I’m sorry, Bianca, it’s just… knowing just how much worse things could have been makes it seem easy to play it down,” she admitted. The last thing Unova needed was another war, storm-torn and fire-blackened. “What I’m trying to say is I’m glad nobody got hurt that seriously, is all.”

“Uh-huh, sure,” Cheren said sarcastically, pointing to where the lichtenberg crept up past the collar of her jacket. Hilda scowled and yanked her windbreaker closed.

“Yeah, and have you seen Nat’s hands? He didn’t exactly come out unscathed, either. At least we didn’t kill each other this time.”

Cheren placed his head in his hands in despair, deceptively gently. “Hilda, how do you manage to try and reassure us by saying something _even more disturbing_?”

“Maybe if I’m disturbing enough, they’ll drop all the charges just from the sheer weirdness of it all,” Hilda mused, knowingly railroading the conversation away from their concerns- even if they _were_ valid ones.

“That’s not how it works, Hilda…” Cheren groaned, and Hilda couldn’t help but laugh at his dramatic reactions. 

Grinning, she waved to where her monstrously huge Gigalith rested, a mountain in hibernation. “Nah, it’ll be fine. Gigalith’ll make taking out Alder’s strongest pokemon a snap, and with the combined testimony of the sages and the first Hero-King of Truth in thousands of years, they should drop the charges.” She placed a finger to her chin, lightly contemplative. “Of course, it might need to be an off-the-books compromise, since I don’t want people getting up in my business about Reshiram…”

“I’m surprised you managed to keep it a secret this long,” Bianca said. “I mean, big, white dragon that’s all over history books and ancient Unovan society? People had to have noticed, right?”

“Well at first it was a safety concern, especially since it turns out they never actually repealed the laws about the order of succession, even though we’re, y’know, not a monarchy anymore,” Hilda explained, thinking about how Reshiram and Zekrom were still worshiped in some regions of Unova. Yeah, she’d had enough attention from weird cultish organizations for the next ten lifetimes, thank you. “And because I’m under eighteen. Remember that incident in Sinnoh? Was all over the news here?”

Cheren nodded, solemn. “Yeah. Some energy corporation messed with the legends of Time and Space and Antimatter, and a few people got mixed in with it.” He frowned, thinking back. “And there was a new trainer who got one of them attached to her. She was all over the news until she beat Champion Cynthia, but then just… vanished. Not even the sniffer Stoutlands could find her.”

“Bingo! There’s your answer!” Hilda pointed at him grandly. “Nobody wants to even breathe the thought of a repeat performance of _that_ , so people know Reshiram is released, but don’t know who they chose. Kinda hard to keep it hidden, anyways, what with the Fusion Flares destroying the castle roof.” Even when she instinctively _knew_ , from the fresh-ancient experience of the first Hero of Truth, to stay out of the way of the clashing titans? Hilda still froze when the ceiling finally blasted outward, and a stray lance of fire nearly took out a news helicopter. 

“But everyone knows who Zekrom is with,” Cheren countered. 

Hilda winced. Yeah, that was… less than ideal. Plasma had made damn sure to publicize their figurehead’s supposed divine right, after Dragonspiral Tower. She’d made sure to avoid those parts of the internet, but she’d still seen a disturbing number of fringe crazies calling for the return of the monarchy, now that Ancient Unova’s gods had returned. The less she and N had to court the possibility of meeting one of those nutso people on their respective travels, the better.

“And I don’t _like_ it,” Hilda finally complained. “But I can’t _do_ much about it. Not like I can do something about N being a _nationally wanted terrorist_.”

“I can’t believe I used to be jealous you had more rivals than me,” Cheren snarked. “Because he seems like a _real_ handful.”

“Yeah, sure, he’s just the most awkward human being alive, and my weirdest friend, and again, a _wanted criminal_. Why would you be jealous of that.”

“Because I was stupid?” Cheren offered, smiling at the light atmosphere. _Aw, he’d learned to poke fun at himself like the rest of us!_ “I thought hey, the stronger the people I beat, the stronger it means I am, yeah? And Plasma’s leader _had_ to be strong, right?” He shook his head incredulously. “Some challenges just aren’t worth it.”

He was right, though. Some challenges weren’t worth it just to chase something so nebulous as strength- the ones that hurt your friends, or the life-threatening ones. They’d _both_ learned that.

\--

Beth jumped when the door swung open to admit customers, hastily pulling out her earbuds- wincing as a few dark green flyaway hairs got yanked- and stuffing her magazine under the menus. Usually nobody cared if she slacked, since it was early enough to still be sun-dark, and snowing, and on a _weekend_ \- nobody came in to loiter at a hole-in-the-wall cafe unless they’d partied _really_ hard the previous night. Beth was long-past that phase, at least- Aspertia U’s grad program wasn’t anywhere near as intense as Opelucid’s or Driftveil’s, but it still required no small amount of effort, mental or financial; hence the morning shifts nobody else wanted to take.

People watching tended to be interesting at 6 am, though- as these customers were shaping up to be. 

The moment they sat down, Beth brandished both the menus and her scripted lines. “Hi, can I start you with something to drink?”

The teenage girl waved her off. “You can come back later, we’re waiting for someone. They’re a bit busy, anyways.” She pointed to the pair of women sitting on the booth across from her; their furious whispers stopped the moment attention was pointed towards them, though.

Shrugging, Beth leisurely took her seat at her usual lair behind the counter, doing her best not to eavesdrop- the occasional snatches of conversation wafted towards her, still. 

“It’s safe, I promise-”

“Yes, for us, but we’re supposed to be in protective custody, if someone _sees-_ ”

“Anthea, I promise you nobody is paying that much attention-”

Now unashamedly eavesdropping, Beth almost didn’t catch the newcomer entering the diner- tall, most likely younger than her, snow dusting the shoulders and hood of his drawn-up jacket, the obvious bulge of pokeballs in his pockets. _A full team of six_ , Beth noted.

“Is-” He cut himself off, eyes drawn by the one of the only other occupants of the diner waving at him from her booth. “Never mind, I see them. Thank you.” 

Beth made to follow him, but stopped when the two women wiggled out of the booth to pull him into a crushing hug, bending the young man down like a willow weighed down by ice. 

Beth hung back conspicuously, waiting until everyone was seated again before approaching again- and was promptly ignored, so absorbed they were in whatever conversation they were having.

She cleared her throat, and three pairs of gray eyes turned to look at her, so familiar it was like looking at her own reflection in a fractured mirror. 

“Um,” Beth said, sweating under the scrutiny. “My name is Beth, and I’ll be taking care of y’all. Are you ready to order now?”

The lone blue-eyed one among them was blessedly casual in comparison. “Yeah sure, I’ll have the-” 

On autopilot, Beth scribbled out all their orders until she was left waiting, pen pressing a blot of ink into her pad, as one of the women- the one with spring-soft hair, like an Audino’s- stared at her. _You look like you’ve seen a ghost_ , Beth wanted to say, but instead bit her tongue and waited. She’d waited on stranger tables before. 

“Hey, ‘Thea,” Blue-eyes whispered, jerking the woman out of her intense haze. 

“Ah, my apologies, I’ll just have the house special, thank you.”

Hastily Beth handed off the order to the just-as-bored cook, resolving to keep an eye on the single occupied table from a distance. She wasn’t sure what, but something was _unnerving_ about those three. Like the scent of a storm in clear skies. 

Beth shrugged and did her best to put it out of her mind, chalking it up to the weirdness of the early hours, and hit up the cook for some gossip. 

She didn’t think any further of it, until she saw one of the periodic reminders of Unova’s dwindling most-wanted list, and all-too familiar eyes glared back at her- familiar like the odd trio who she waited on at the morning shift, familiar like the eyes that peered back at her every time she looked in a mirror.

Beth popped open the mediocre wine she got as a gift from her ex, and called her parents. Both would help to calm the raging swirl of ‘ _Oh legends, how large of a bullet did I just dodge_ ’, she hoped.

\--

Champion Hilda only kept her seat for two months. Not uncommon among younger Champions- the responsibilities were weighty, and as the region’s greatest single defense against physical threats, it was often too much for children. The results of the matches with her challengers were often publicized as someone who was simply enjoying the warm breeze from atop the Hall of Fame’s throne, before deciding she would float off to continue chasing her own adventure. Carefree as the sparks dancing off the fire she surrounded her arena with, they said. 

She didn’t argue with them.

(During Hilda’s short reign as Champion, the old laws about kingship and Right of the Dragon, previously forgotten and only left in the books as an irrelevant antiquity, were dusted off and put away for good; their risk of invocation, gone.

Far more quietly, the charges against Nathan Harmonia were dropped, after pressure from both the League and the ex-Champion, and after heartfelt testimony by Plasma’s sage Rood.)

\--

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Zekrom and Reshiram having some measure of power over their domain by essentially pressuring the truth or their unfiltered ideals out of someone, alongside them essentially going ‘lmao you aint killing this dude? Shame’ is based off the lines from N at endgame (“ _Zekrom will bare its fangs at people who fail to follow their ideals/Reshiram will incinerate people who fail to keep the truth in their heart”_ ) if you scoot around the dragon to talk to him before catching it.
> 
> Anyways. Yeah, that name oughta look familiar, huh? Beth, completely unaware that it was a family reunion in more than a few ways, has a bit of a minor breakdown of “Oh sweet legends, that was Zekrom in one of those pokeballs, that’s _terrifying what the FUCK-_ ”. Several layers of weirdness aside, she just moves on with her life, and if Concordia Anthea and N ever choose to track down any errant relations, they’d do so after shit has calmed down a lot. Even then, it’s a big ‘if’- it’d feel wrong to them, to drag in somebody else to the Harmonia Dysfunction Junction. 


End file.
